


young guns of the east county

by readyfreddie



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 15:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 132,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10856823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readyfreddie/pseuds/readyfreddie
Summary: What starts as a slow burn poly get-together story takes a weird, mildly Tarantino-esque turn in the middle, and, well...I'm sorry?Or,Matty Munroe thinks too much and doesn't communicate quite enough.(Some gun violence but I wouldn't say the depictions are all that graphic.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work mainly takes place in the early 0ughts, although some flashbacks go clear back to the early/mid 90s. Attitudes towards lgbtq things reflect this. Don't be mad at my characters for not being as progressive as they should be for a time they haven't lived in yet.

ONE

I can tell you this right off: real life stories never end happily ever after. Sure, the picture ends, the credits roll--but did you ever wonder what happens after the credits? Yeah, you saw the part where the story telling stops, the hero and the heroine kiss, and everything is hearts and flowers and off into the sunset. 

But really, come on, what's next? I can guarantee you they won't always get along--every couple fights. Maybe she likes to throw dishes at him, and breaks all the wedding china and crystal. Maybe he loves her, but he was never a one-woman man, and she comes home from a PTA meeting one night to find him boning the babysitter. Or maybe it's no one's fault. Could be 10 years down the road he gets prostate cancer and bites it; she forgets to look both ways and gets flattened by a bus. 

When it comes down to the wire, there's always a sequel, and the only real end comes when you die. Death isn't usually considered a joyous occasion. 

Mari never watches the end of Breakfast at Tiffany's. She always turns it off after Holly gets out of the taxi, running after Cat in the rain. Mac asked her why once and she said it just depressed her. 

It just wasn't realistic, she said, to believe that a pair of prostitutes could find true love with one another. The relationship wouldn't last a year. 

Mari would much rather believe they saw the futility in the situation, and Paul let Holly go, leaving them each with fond memories, unspoiled by the bitterness and hatred of their inevitable future breakup. 

A couple days later, Mac brought up the conversation again. He asked, "Where does that leave the three of us?" 

Mari hasn't answered yet. 

That though isn't a surprise. The surprise was more that Mari said so much in the first place. The woman rarely speaks. The rumor is she hasn't said much at all since she was 9 and her mother tried to kill her. 

Even though I believe what I just said--all that about happy endings--is totally true, if there's anyone who knows what to do with the lemons life hands out, it's Mari. She'll just add vodka and tonic and raise her glass to it--life, that is--with that ironic smile of hers and keep on floating along. 

It’s that thought that hits me this morning, along with the sun that hits my aching eyes—you know that dehydrated ache you’re conscious of almost before you know you’re conscious, inevitably followed by the realization your head is a pressure cooker about to explode and your tongue’s morphed into a hybrid of dried-out sea sponge and heavy grade sandpaper sometime in the night. 

I roll over on the king size waterbed Mac inherited from his grandparents when they bought one of those automatic adjustable beds sometime last year—the kind advertised in infomercials around 3 a.m. when you can’t sleep and any kind of change from what you’re at the moment tossing and turning on looks good—and fight to swallow my stomach back down. It rolls in time with the plastic encased liquid under my stiff body. Shading my eyes from the cool glare breaking in white bars across us from between the slats in the blinds, I stare at the girl sprawled spread-eagle between me and Mac on the vast roiling lake of the bed. 

Her hands are hidden in the recesses of her plaid flannel shirtsleeves, and a ridiculous rock of a diamond pendant winks out from the unbuttoned collar of the shirt. Her face is relaxed in sleep, her breathing steady, and I know even if I increase the turbulence of the waters below us to the violence of the Pacific in the midst of a storm the steady in and out of that breathing won’t change its pace at all, almost like Jesus asleep in the boat on a stormy lake of Galilee. 

In contrast, Mac, laying just beyond her, gripping one of her hands in troubled sleep, catches his breath just now and mumbles incoherently before returning to grinding his teeth, his brow furrowing. It was that maybe that woke me up as much as the sun on my hung-over head, and I sit up to reach across Mari and grip his shoulder, nudging him out of the nightmare. He reaches instinctively for the weapon he used to keep there up until a few months ago, coiling his naked body up tight like a spring, until he opens his eyes and becomes aware of where he is. Letting out a long breath he pushes a fall of straight black hair from his face and yawns. 

“Hey,” I say, wincing at the croak of it, and cough into the crook of my elbow to clear my throat, try again. “You were dreaming again. It’s still early—go back to bed.” 

He yawns again and nods, sleep already glazing his eyes, and curls up against Mari, clutching her to him like a kid would a stuffed toy. Still deeply asleep, she flops against him like a rag doll. Watching them both a few moments, as Mac slides into hopefully better dreams, I don’t smile as I would any other morning at the sight of them both there, where they belong. What Mac said keeps echoing in my head—“Where does that leave us?”—along with something one of my friends said last night in the middle of one of our get-togethers. 

Bi-monthly, Mari, Mac and I host invasions of our 14th Avenue bungalow by our near and dear (as well as the flotsam and jetsam of our acquaintances). 

Our parties have taken on a more cosmopolitan feel since our first ones, which were all-out shameless old-fashioned keggers. The pretense of maturity however is merely a façade made from real glassware and French hors devours. Climbing fast to our mid-20s and each of us at least a small blip on the art-world radar, it really wouldn’t do—as Mac says—to bring out the beer bong these days. 

So everyone brings a fifth or an equally intoxicating party favor, and the three of us open our doors wide to whomever and whatever, firing up the hot tub and opening up our basement bar. In return, we have us enough leftovers to last a good part of the rest of the month—but also spend a good half of the thirty-odd days cleaning up the aftermath. 

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, wincing at the subsequent chain reaction of pain, and head for the bathroom just next to the stairs, the only enclosure in the expanse of attic where we keep our bed. 

Standing before the john, I let myself indulge for several moments in the relief of release, before my mind goes back to gnawing with dogged persistence on the words of my friend last night. I recall we stood leaning against the pool table—the last game having gone bust when one of Mac’s coworkers started a fistfight with one of my frat brothers over the outcome of the game. 

Mari slipped deftly between the two and dealt with the problem in her usual quick, efficient fashion. 

The man beside me—John McGee, the first male of our species to ever convince me to kiss him voluntarily on the mouth—raised his glass in tribute to her. 

“That’s some girl who’s managed to snag the man of my dreams and his dangerously beautiful partner,” McGee said, tossing back the rest of the scotch in his tumbler. 

“Huh?” I looked down at him, he grinned mischievously back up at me. 

The thing about the three of us—me, Mari and Mac—we don’t advertise. Our somewhat…modern relationship isn’t a state secret. My mother does know about it after all. It’s just that no one’s happened to figure it out yet. It’s only human, I think, to see only the things you’re looking for. As all the bedrooms are off-limits during our bi-monthly gatherings, it’s possible no one’s noticed there’s only one bed in the house. 

People will approach Mari and ask her which of us guys she’s with, and our girl will simply smirk or laugh like they’re joking—like it should be perfectly obvious. The other person inevitably feels stupid she asked. 

But apparently to John McGee the whole situation was obvious from the first, according to the order of his statement, and he only laughed at my surprise. 

“You’re astute,” I said, eyebrows raised. 

“Not really. I’ve just been in love with you for so long there’s not much I don’t know about you,” he said, doing that gay-man limp wrist thing as he nudged me companionably, and I felt myself blush as I tossed back the rest of my beer. 

“Shut up McGee,” I said, embarrassed in spite of myself. John McGee may have been the first man to make me feel comfortable kissing other guys, and he may have been one of my best friends outside Mari and Mac, but the thought of someone with McGee’s scruples carrying a torch for me was not a comfortable thought. The past couple years the man’s sexual habits have gotten seriously scary—and that’s coming from someone in my position. 

“You’re so cute Matt,” he said, reaching up to pinch my cheeks, and I winced knowing one of the guys I used to play with on the team probably saw that. “But no, seriously,” he said, his eyes drifting back to Mari, who stood then behind our basement teakwood bar mixing something in the shaker, “to pull of a coup like that—taking in two hot men with one fell swoop. I wonder which one of you she’s really after.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Then, unlike my earlier surprised query, I really had no idea what he meant. 

“Come on Matt darling. She’s obviously after one of you. She’s smart, I’ll give her that. She knows for now you and the delicious Mac come as a package deal.” He laughed at the double entendre. “But women—well, you know. She’s obviously after one of you. That’s how these threesome deals work dear. It’s human nature to pair off. It’s very sweet for now, the three of you, but eventually one of you will be left out in the cold.” He smiled up at me again, reminding me of a vulture—that is, if vultures had mouthfuls of big white teeth—and sauntered over to the bar before I could get a word in. 

I tried to brush it off, what he said, but I couldn’t help feeling uneasy and a little sick as I went in search of something stronger than a beer. 

And the feeling is still there as I find myself staring into the bathroom mirror, toothbrush in my mouth. I’m dressed now in boxers and a t-shirt, and I wonder absently how long I’ve been running on autopilot as I spit into the sink. I don’t remember dressing. I run my tongue over my teeth as I pull on jeans—the toothpaste hasn’t totally eradicated the nasty taste from my mouth. 

Downstairs I survey the living room. The mess isn’t the worst we’ve dealt with, but it’s far-off from pretty. I decide to deal with it later and continue down to the basement, grimacing as my bare feet encounter something sticky. Picking my way over a few glasses and bottles and cigarette butts that litter the floor, I unlock my workroom and breathe in deep the clean scents of varnish and wood shavings. This is my sanctuary. Surveying the workbench, I select a half-finished piece in red oak, what will eventually be my interpretation of one of the old men who’s been wandering the market lately, busking with a blues harp and an upturned old-style Mariners cap. I choose a knife and settle on the bench, setting about the delicate task of freeing the old guy’s features from the wood. 

My mind wanders back to John McGee’s words as I work. He can’t be right, I think, carefully smoothing out my figure’s bald head. He doesn’t know anything about us—anything about where we come from or who we are. But still my thoughts drift over each of us, and our collective pasts, back to the beginning of us all. 

Chronologically, the first big impact-stuff probably hit Mari first, and her story goes like this: 

Mari's mother was the sixth and last child of a religious zealot and his shit-eating wife. According to Mari, she has one uncle who doesn't desperately need psychotherapy. Her mother is the looniest of the bunch. 

The attempted murder happened in three incidences, when the Macys lived in Olympia, before Mari's dad divorced her mom and moved out to Morton with Mari. Anna Wiley-Macy picked a foggy October morning, just after Mari's ninth birthday, to snap. Mari woke with a knife hovering over her chest. 

The neighbors eventually decided to see what was up with all the screaming next door, and found Anna backed into a corner, her daughter keeping here there with a carving knife grasped in both hands. The neighbors took away the knife and called the cops, who decided to believe Anna's story, that her daughter was angered beyond reason by having to eat oatmeal for breakfast. The fact that there was no oatmeal in the house didn't do a thing to waver the estimable deputy's opinion. 

Well, a week later, Mari woke up to the exact same scene. She rolled out of the way just as the knife came down, and the edge caught her on the arm this time before sinking into the mattress. Again the neighbors were disturbed by Anna and Mari's banshee wailing, and again the cops were called. At that point though they still preferred to believe it was Mari who was crazy, rather than think any mother, let alone a prominent lawyer's wife, would harm her child, despite the knife holes in that child's mattress. 

It wasn't surprising that Mari slept very lightly after this. The next time, she woke just as her mother was entering the room with the knife. She rolled out of bed and out the door (diving through Anna's legs when the woman tried to block her way) and took off running down the street in her bare feet and night gown, her mother running after her brandishing the knife. This time more than one neighbor was a witness, and Anna Macy was sent to a nice "rest" home, where she still lives under 24/7 surveillance, claiming daily God told her to do it, and her daughter and husband are going to hell. 

Mari visits her still, on Easter, on Christmas, and on Anna's birthday every year. Mac and I went with her last time, and now I wonder if poor Anna was really as guilty as everyone now believes she is, after watching Mari and her mother together. Oh, it's subtle, the provocation, but our Mari may truly be Satan's child as Anna claims. I watched (horrified, of course) and Mac tried hard not to laugh as mother and daughter--one perfectly coiffed and neatly attired in a twin-set and slacks, the other looking like a street rat in ragged layers and flyaway hair--stared each other down. 

The attendants had to hold Anna back as Mari struck out with clever, sharp jabs, from the pentagram pendant worn prominently around her neck and the Hot-Topic type satanic T-shirt purchased specially for the occasion to the conversation peppered with four-letter words and amoral (and mostly fictional) tales she told of her life in the city. 

Other than superficial differences of attire and age, they could be mirror images, skinny pale-haired waifs with huge eyes that take over their faces, like an anime cartoon. It's the eyes that are the scariest thing--and looking back and forth between the two sets, there's not much difference in the expressions--they're both crazy, but only Anna got caught. 

It was all innocent enough--the nurses never would have guessed from Mari's guileless expression that she was being anything other than herself, and how else would they expect a poor sweet little thing to turn out without her mother? 

Such is life in the bible belt of Western Washington: more specifically, East Lewis County. When she was 16, Mari turned the whole experience of life here, and the story of her would-be murdering mother, to her advantage, publishing the first in a string of best-selling young adult novels, semi-fictionalized accounts. 

The sad thing is, not much if it's really too far-off from parody. The three of us really did meet at a meeting of the Young Guns Junior Rifle Club of East Lewis County. 

It was in late fall of 1994, which would mean I was 14, Mari was 13, and Mac was only 12. 

Mac says it was inevitable we would attach ourselves to each other—we were the only ones not in plaid flannel and/or farm or logging boots. We didn’t know each other from 4-H or FFA. And none of the three of us had ever been hunting. 

I was there because I was the only one on the Mossyrock 8th grade football team who didn’t know how to shoot a gun. Mari was there because she’d had an obsessive fascination with weapons since she was 9. Mac was there at the behest of his new stepfather who refused to have a stepson who was such a pansy ass momma’s boy that he’d gotten to the advanced age of 12 without ever having handled a gun. 

Mari was the only girl in the club that year, and Mac and I were the only beginners. Mari took us both under the folds of her too-large, rolled-sleeved suit jacket that first Saturday morning and kept us from blowing off our toes. We’ve been fast friends ever since. 

Maybe it was predestined we would meet and hit it off, the three of us. On the surface we weren’t much alike, Mac being the typical skate-punk self-proclaimed misfit, while Mari was already an outcast at that point through her unusual relationship with her mother and only made matters worse by rarely speaking to anyone and dressing like she’d raided the Salvation Army bin for her wardrobe—which she didn’t actually. She wore her dad’s old clothes, cut down to fit her or rolled up and layered. She originally started this mode of dress to piss off one of a frequent string of young and pretty stepmothers, but by that point it was ingrained habit, and still is. 

I was, on the surface, the most normal—I dressed more or less to fit the status quo (though a little less “country” than many), played and was good at sports. At that point, not fitting in wasn’t my fault—my mother and her partner were one of the few openly gay couples in the county, and to make it worse, both professional artists. 

But all of us, in one way or another, have had to defend our lives or our virtue not only from the adolescent cruelty of our peers, but from the hands of crazed lunatics. Mari’s story was only the first, and most public. 

Mac’s time came shortly after that first meeting. On a Saturday morning a couple months after our first mutual meeting at the Young Guns Junior Rifle Club of East Lewis County, the usually hyperactive motor-mouthed Mac was as quiet and pale as Mari. When he started to hit the target seven times out of 10 that morning instead of with his usual 2 percent accuracy, Mari and I knew something was up. 

By that time, it was customary for the three of us to gather at one of our houses after rifle club meetings, and that day we were at Mari’s. Over bowls of Lucky Charms in chocolate milk and cans of Dr. Pepper (not as good as at Mac’s house, where it would have been homemade doughnuts, but better than at mine, which was usually burnt vegan cookies) we forced this story out of Mac: 

Mac’s new step-dad was a long-haul trucker, and none of us could figure out how he’d won over Mac’s pretty young mom Nancy, a widow who made the best baked goods in Onalaska and made pocket money by selling them out of the truck-stop diner at the intersection of the East 12 and Jackson Highways. Larry Bruce was a fat, pot-bellied, plumbers-crack-showing, tobacco-juice-spitting, chauvinistic-pig-headed jerk, but as Mari said with a shrug, some women are convinced they need a man. 

Well, the night before, Mac told us white-faced, teary-eyed, in a shaking voice, Trucker Larry had decided to take advantage of his new son’s supposed pansy ass. Mac managed to escape the fat trucker’s grasping, dirty-nailed hands and locked himself in the bathroom. Larry wasn’t about to wake his wife, sleeping in the next room, by trying to break down the door after his first few attempts to get in. But Mac woke up that morning to Larry changing the doorknobs on the bathroom to ones without locks and Mac didn’t have many hopes for his future prospects of escaping ass-piracy. The kid was terrified. 

All the while maintaining her usual silence, Mari retrieved a small semi-automatic Browning from her personal arsenal and marched us out to the field behind her father’s estate and patiently showed Mac how to load and shoot the thing (and myself as well—maybe just to be fair, but probably because in Mari’s eyes no kid should be left defenseless, and in her experience extreme measures prepared one for all eventualities) and then instructed Mac, in a rare spurt of verbosity, to sleep with it under his pillow at night and hide it well during his waking hours. 

Sure enough, as Mac reported to us the next Saturday (his normal obnoxious self again, though strangely the improved accuracy of his shooting remained), Trucker Larry, the would-be butt-pirate of small-for-their-age formerly defenseless adolescent boys struck again. This time though, Mac cheerfully said as he hit the man-outline target right in the crotch area, hairy naked Larry was greeted by a neat little pistol aimed right at his dick. 

“Shriveled up to the size of a cocktail wiener,” Mac said grinning. 

He caught Larry ransacking his room a couple times after that, but when he failed to find the gun, which Mac kept hidden under his baggy skater clothes, he kept a careful distance from then on between himself and his no-longer pansy-assed stepson. 

The Young Guns Junior Rifle Club was disbanded soon after that when the club’s director shot himself in the thigh and bled to death in the woods the next hunting season. Under normal circumstances the three of us might have lost touch then—we all three lived in different school districts, with more than a half-hour drive in any direction between all of our houses, but the incident with Mac had brought us closer to each other than we’d ever been to anyone before. And with the three of us pretty much loners by nature or circumstance, it wasn’t like we had a lot of other close friends. 

We continued getting together every Saturday afternoon—usually at my house, as both Mari and Mac despised their respective stepparents. My moms, though, liked the two of them sometimes more than they liked me I think. It was true they were both a hell of a lot more open-minded than any of my other friends, who were mostly guys from various sports teams. And Mari and Mac soon enough adopted my moms as their own. Mac, who inherited his own mother’s love of cooking but couldn’t indulge that passion at home (Larry wouldn’t let him—only women and homos cook in Larry Land) had the run of my moms’ kitchen, and some weekends made us enough food for half the week, which alone would have won the hearts of that pair, mostly helpless in the kitchen themselves. It was also my mom’s partner Celeste who helped Mari get her first book published back in 1997. The only thing my moms didn’t like was our continuing penchant for firearms. As progressive women of the 90s, they were both liberal democrats, and were frequently forced to replace the anti-gun bumper stickers on their cars which were continuously defaced by anonymous members of our NRA-loving county. But because they loved us, they suffered through our weekly backyard target practices with earplugs and only the occasional snide remark. 

Because we all attended different schools, our association was mostly unknown well into my high school years. It was my Junior year of high school (which would make Mari a sophomore and Mac only a freshman) our friendship was made more public. Mari had been freed of her third stepmother after a messy divorce that summer, and the nights her dad spent sleeping over in his law office in the state capitol of Olympia the three of us began to host parties in his huge, isolated home. And seven years after Mari’s near-murder and three years after Mac escaped becoming his step-dad’s piece on the side, it was my turn to be the target of yet another psychopath. 

That year, even though I was only a junior, I was starting quarterback and team captain of the varsity football team, and Mossyrock High School’s best chance of making it to the Washington State B-school championships. As a result of my natural athletic ability and good looks (a combination which will, despite Allen Ginsberg’s assertions to the contrary, let you buy what you need at the supermarket—when you’ve forgot your wallet, or when there’s a teenage girl behind the checkout—at least in a town with a population under 900) I caught the attention of the Mayor’s daughter. 

DeeDee DeWitt matched my captaincy of the football team with one of her own on the cheerleading squad, my straight-As with an identical set. According to the other members of my team, she was the hottest girl in the 11th and 12th grades combined, and her parents only let her date me because she got me to attend church with her every Sunday morning and youth group every Tuesday night at the Bethel Church in Napavine. Her parents believed she was saving me from the influence of my queer mothers. 

Because of that, she refused to set foot in my home, and we all met at Mac’s place one Saturday afternoon so I could introduce my new girlfriend to my two very best friends. My two best friends were as horrified by my new girlfriend as she was by them; afterwards Mari and Mac referred to DeeDee with scathing politeness as “that girl you’re seeing,” while DeeDee less-politely called my best friends “those two freaks you hang out with.” 

But it wasn’t until DeeDee and I lost our virginity to each other in the back of my truck after a winning home game one night that I began to see the flaws in my girlfriend’s character. Maybe, like Mac said, I was just being a typical guy, disenchanted with the goods after tasting all there was to taste, but I would sear my sweet little cheerleader turned into a green-eyed monster after that. She demanded an exact accounting of every hour we didn’t spend together, including who I sat by in every class and interrogated me on any girl she’d heard from the spies on her cheer squad I’d been standing within 10 feet of when she wasn’t hanging on my arm. She planned out our lives together, down to my career as future Mossyrock High School gym teacher and football coach (over my dead body would I still be in Mossyrock in 10 years, I told her, but she persisted) and the names and genders of the three children we would have. 

The final straw came when she and her parents told me it would be best if I moved into their house. We would sleep on separate floors, her mother said, until we graduated high school and could get married. She said now that I’d found Jesus, and seemed like such a part of the family, it was the least they could do to help me escape the sinful influence of my homosexual parent and “her friend.” I respectfully declined. When DeeDee kept on, I dumped her ass, after delivering a few choice words to the DeWitts as a group about small-minded homophobic Jesus freaks. 

DeeDee wouldn’t leave me alone. She stalked me in the hallways at school and parked outside my driveway at night with a pair of binoculars, among other creepy acts. I threatened her (maintaining a gentlemanly manner) with a restraining order. The threat made little impact. That weekend, DeeDee DeWitt made Mari Macy’s increasingly famous parties forever infamous throughout the entire county. 

I was a little suspicious when I saw her there that night. DeeDee didn’t drink, and rarely attended non-church parties. By that time I was already pretty “effed-up” as the boys on the team used to say, but nevertheless determined to avoid a confrontation, so I smiled blearily and waved, going about my business. 

Unfortunately for me, my primary object of business that night was getting into Jaycee Uhlmer’s pants, and I was close to attaining that goal some 30 minutes later in the Macys’ back guest bedroom when DeeDee barged in. She just stood there and stared, blushing, and I admit it must have been pretty rough for her, the two of us barely a week broke up, and me all over another girl who wore only a bra and underwear. 

At the time, I only thought it was a regrettable thing, as it completely spoiled the mood for Jaycee, who immediately put all her clothes back on and headed off in the direction of the keg. Resigned to my ill-luck, I followed her out the door and hunted down Mari. Five minutes later, I found out it was a little more than ill-luck. 

I was sharing a nice fat blunt with Mari in the living room when we were startled by the sound of breaking glass. Mari, assuming the disturbance came from the kitchen, headed off in that direction only to be knocked on her ass as DeeDee barreled up the basement stairs and headed straight for me, a shot gun liberated from Mari’s gun cabinet perched on her shoulder. I stood with my hands raised in surrender, but she was having none of it. 

Lucky for me, her sole acquaintance with firearms came from the Annual Ladies Plinking Picnic she attended with her mother every summer, because as she leveled the gun at me she said very clearly “I’m going to shoot out your black heart Matty Munroe, you lying, cheating jerk-face,” and to this day I believe she meant it. Being somewhat inexperienced, however, the shot just grazed my inner left thigh, flying between my legs close enough to my package to give me nightmares for the rest of my life, and imbedding itself in the couch behind me. 

Before she could get out her next shot, Mari flew up from the spot where she’d landed on her ass and from where she had had until then watched the whole scene dumbly—but still surprisingly quickly even after all the pot she’d smoked that night—and tacked DeeDee, wrestling her to the ground. The shot ricocheted off the ceiling and shattered the Tiffany lampshade on the end table next to me. 

The house cleared like a theater on fire after that, inebriated teenagers fleeing the inevitable cops in droves, except for the faithful Mari and Mac, who risked MIPs for me and stuck around to wrest the gun from DeeDee and staunch the blood flowing freely from my thigh until the paramedics got there. 

Needless to say, I survived, with a pretty impressive scar and thanks to whatever gods there are that I’ve still got my dick. 

DeeDee DeWitt got off mostly scot-free, as her uncle on her mother’s side was the Morton police chief. The deal he worked out was that none of us would get in trouble for illegally possessing drugs and alcohol and providing them to other minors, if we didn’t press charges against DeeDee for stealing Mari’s gun, trying to kill me, and trashing Mari’s living room. In turn, DeeDee agreed to never contact me again and stay at least 50 yards away from me at all times. 

Shortly after, the DeWitts left the state (the former teen queen now universally hated at Mossyrock High School for putting their best chance at a football state championship out of commission for the rest of the season) and from then on the Morton police left the Macy home strictly alone, no matter what kind of wild parties reportedly went on there. 

These days, Mac likes to wonder if we would have become what we later did, without each of those things to shape us: 

The knowledge that you can find friends in the most unlikely places; 

That you can do whatever you want as long as you find a safe place to do it; 

That the world is full of psycho freaks, from the fat sweaty truck drivers who fit the mold, to the sweet pretty cheerleaders who don’t; 

And the realization, each time we were forced to defend ourselves and each other, that none of us are infallible; and what it’s worth to have friends who will go to the wall for you any time you need them.


	2. Chapter 2

In the business of happy-ever-after, there’s sometimes the scene where your hero and heroine are forced apart by circumstance before they come back together in the grand finale find-each-other-again scene, your happy-ever-after for now. 

These time-apart scenes are usually comparatively short and covered with soundtrack as the players go about their daily lives just as before, but this time longing for each other. 

Ever wondered how long those few movie minutes would stretch if you transferred them to real life? We’re talking weeks, months, years. And those shots taken of the actors’ faces, just right when their thoughts hit on the one they’re missing? Looks pretty often when you squish them all together and block out the background noise with a poignant song. The space between though, in real time, is never as touching. It’s just real people doing real things like going to the laundromat and checking out the singles like everyone else, going to the gym and checking out yourself in the full-length mirrors, spending long days in school or at work absorbed in the business at hand. 

It was right that I left first, my mom told me once a couple months back. Even though I was the oldest of the three of us, I still had the furthest to go. I was inclined at first to be offended at what she said, thinking I’d suffered as much shit as my two friends, but really, she was right. 

Sure, like Mari, I had a psycho bitch go after me with a deadly weapon, but my psycho bitch wasn’t anything like my own mother, just some girl I was already done with—and come to that, I didn’t even save myself, like the little girl Mari had. Mari saved my ass too. And though I’ve never said as much out loud, for a long time that was a point of shame for me, that I needed myself rescued from a girl by a girl half my size. 

Even Mac, the skinny bastard, had managed to protect his backside for years from a 300-pound trucker with a penchant for little-boy butt. I couldn’t imagine being forced to sleep with a semi-automatic weapon under my pillow for years to guard myself from someone I should have been able to trust—who should, in fact, have protected me. 

When it came right down to it, I think they both made me feel guilty. Yeah, I had two moms who didn’t eat meat or animal products, voted on the democratic ticket and spent their days painting weird things that looked like phalluses and fetuses or taking pictures of things like public bathrooms and road kill with black and white film even though color had been available for half a century—that would made life tough enough for anyone where I come from. But my parents, lesbos though they may be, actually love me. They cared not only for me, but my needs and wants and dreams, and made sure I had everything. Still do. And despite my homo parents, the whole town knew me and liked me and seemed to want the best for me, even if, as I walked around on crutches that fall of 1998 I couldn’t make any new records for yards run or touchdowns made in a game that year (after all, I was only a junior, so there was always next year). 

It was like that gunshot wound in the thigh drove it all home for me, and though I was able to push most of feelings of guilt to the back of my consciousness for the year and a half that remained of high school, it left a sort of bad aftertaste at the base of my tongue. 

Come right down to it, there were other things that bothered me too. Like, a couple times during parties at Mari’s my senior year, I walked in on Mari and Mac making out. I was always flying pretty high on one thing or another, but by the third time I knew I wasn’t hallucinating. Couldn’t say then why it bothered me—it wasn’t that Mac had a steady girlfriend that year (Mari herself had had only one try at being a girlfriend and swore vehemently never again)—I had cheated on enough girlfriends after the DeeDee disaster to be morally numb to that factor. I know now I was feeling left out, but that never would have occurred to me then. 

Also, I remember Mac was starting to make me feel a little twitchy. I’d catch myself just watching him, like a close-up in a movie scene—it was the little things, like the way the lines of his throat shifted and flowed as he swallowed down a beer, his long lean hands powdered with flour expertly rolling out the dough for scones, his teeth flashing white at a private joke while he shoved shiny black hair from his eyes. 

I told myself it was normal for me to notice things that way—I was an artist, I could say so then I thought, having sold a few hundred dollars worth of my wood carvings at the Southwest Washington Fair that August. I told myself I watched the guys at school the same way—hadn’t I just had Junior Squires stand for 15 minutes posed about to throw a pass while I sketched him from all angles? (Poor Junior—he’s dead now, a logging accident a couple years ago—had been a good sport about it all.) 

In my gut though I knew I studied the other guys with professional detachment—they probably would have sensed it had it been anything else, and called me on it—if they didn’t beat the shit out of me first. Watching Mac was more like…feeding a hunger. Something elemental and necessary to me. 

I knew that instinctively and it was enough to drive my 18-year-old mind crazy chasing the thought in circles. I didn’t think I was gay—since DeeDee there hadn’t been really one special girl, but there were enough random girls that there was no question I enjoyed females. I adored girls, and they liked me OK too. I explored the possibility that I might be bisexual, but I’ve always been of the mind that you are how you live, and I’d seen my mothers go through enough grief to know I wanted none of the social stigma that comes with an alternative lifestyle. 

The biggest thing though was that it seemed almost traitorous to be attracted to either of my best friends that way. When I was with DeeDee, I naively thought we liked each other enough that even if we broke up, we’d still be friends. A shotgun showed me differently. Once you rub away the lustrous veneer of sex on a relationship, it seems almost impossible not to rub away every other trace of desire with it, including the desires that cause people to want to spend time together for plain friendship’s sake. 

So I knew it was also with a healthy amount of fear that I regarded the change of dynamics between Mac and Mari. It terrified me that the two of them, with their fooling around, might fuck something up. That I couldn’t have stood. They had been my support system for so long, Mac with his endless optimism and slapstick-comic hyperactivity, Mari with her quiet strength despite those odd one-liners of hers—her form of communication—that show a bizarre sense of humor and a touch of insanity hidden deep beneath the layers of her. I knew that if somehow everything I had was stripped away—my good looks and athletic ability, my just-emerging artistic talent, my home and family—I would still be ok as long as I had them to hold onto. 

I think about all that now as the old man’s hands take shape under my own and the sharp, clever little knife. It’s small, crucial cuts that will form these tiny things, red wooden hands, so small to be the focal point of a piece of art, but they will be if I cut just right. 

It’s tense work sometimes, to know one careless move, or even a careful one gone wrong, could destroy the entire sculpture. It’s hours of work lost in a second and I’ve done it before, looked up at a startling sound and in one clumsy stroke sliced the nose from a young girl’s face and severed a tendon in my hand as well. 

I never spoke to either Mari or Mac about it at the time—the two of them kissing each other—but left it hanging to cool the air I left behind me when I went away to college. 

The University of Washington had surprised the hell out of me when it offered me a football scholarship, but I took it of course, I loaded up my stuff into the back of my pickup August 1999, kissed my moms goodbye and began my year alone. 

And I’d never felt so alone in my entire life, even surrounded by a houseful of frat brothers, strings of new teammates, lecture halls full of students—way too many of whom seemed to want to be my new friends. It left me confused and turned inside out, thinking “Why the hell are you talking to me of all people?” In high school I could understand the attraction. With a graduating class of somewhere around 50, there are only so many people to choose from. But there, on a university campus with a student body 30 times the population of my hometown, it all left me baffled. 

Seattle is the opposite of East Lewis County in every way. There are the obvious differences of course, city vs. a sprinkling of rural hamlets: tall office buildings and tightly packed houses rather than open fields, craggy mountains, misty riverbed canyons and towering old-growth; crowded streets and freeways as opposed to wide-open highways and pot-holed country lanes. You know about the differences going from one place to another. What you don’t know about it before you get there is how it feels: the claustrophobic paranoid feeling of having nowhere to go away from other eyes—strangers’ eyes; the oddity of kids walking around completely unmolested even though they’re dressed like it’s Halloween in candy-colored hair dye and black clothes or something stranger with metal in places on their bodies metal’s got no business being; the shock of seeing two men walking hand in hand in public completely openly and unafraid the way my parents never could. I hid my insecurities from my new peers and jumped in with both feet, playing hard, working hard, partying hard, and devouring tank-top clad girls with painted-on jeans and heels that made their legs go on for miles. These I consumed in singles or pairs—once even in triplicate I think—and when I look back and recall the bulk of that year the first thing that assaults my memory is the way those anonymous girls tasted and smelled and felt under my hands: like candy or flowers or fruit, sweet and sticky beneath a stink of smoke and alcohol fumes, smooth and hot and slippery and jiggling soft. That year, the act of sex was akin to the eye watering sting of a whiff of Bacardi 151, the burn and the rush after tossing it back, and the chlorine and shit smell, the cool of tile and white porcelain, the morning after. 

But after a while you’re numb to most things, if it becomes routine enough. That first year is a blur in my memory after the initial ice-water bath of culture shock. 

Returning to that period in my mind is like watching a movie on fast-forward while you’re stoned—all I can recall is a haze of sleep-inducing core-classes, loud and usually freezing cold football games, and way too many drunk and rowdy nights revolving around a primary setting of Greek Row. I wonder if I was even really there sometimes, or if my body was simply functioning on auto-pilot, like it has a tendency to do when I’m lost in thought. All I know for sure is I came away from that year with a 4.0, a spot on the Husky football team’s starting lineup, a case of the clap, and the nickname “Machine”—bestowed by a frat brother who claimed to be in awe of my ability to consume massive amounts of alcohol every night and still stay at the top of my game in every other endeavor. 

And then I went home to Mari and Mac, to seeing pictures from “Field and Stream” outside my truck’s windows, and life snapped back into focus for a bare five minutes. 

I have a crystal clear, film-like memory of Mari from the day I drove home, sitting on the fence in front of my moms’ house smoking a cigarette, her small body swimming in a pair of tuxedo pants and a blinding white mens dress shirt. Her hair hung in her eyes and her feet were bare, and as she swing her legs her heels pounded against the middle fence board. 

She pulled a cigarette from her breast pocket and handed it to me, sticking a Marilyn Monroe Zippo under my nose. 

“Where’s Mac?” I asked, nearly disgracing myself by almost choking on the inhale, absently glancing for a brand on the filter and not recognizing it—Mari likes them strong and foreign. 

“He’s inside cooking up something rich and unpronounceable,” Mari said, wrinkling up her forehead, “with…what’s’is name—can never remember—his boyfriend.” 

Then I did choke. “His what?” 

It seemed Mari and Mac’s courses had changed as much as mine had that year. The parties stopped when Mari’s dad brought home wife number four, and as compensation Mari wheedled an apartment in the nearest mid-sized town (population 14,000, at the northwest corner of the county) out of Mr. Macy. She took advantage of a program at the community college there that allowed her to take courses counting simultaneously as high school and college credits. Mac, desperate still to get away from his parents as fast as possible, moved in with her and through the same program piled up enough credits to cover his last two years of school in one. 

All that studious industry would never put those off intoxication and the wilder type of social stimulation however. Without that, they almost wouldn’t be Mari and Mac. And living by school put them in closer proximity to Olympia—about a 20 minute drive away. Olympia, as the state capitol and home to a community college and two universities, one of which has long been considered among the most liberal of liberal arts colleges in the country, allowed Mari and Mac more freedom to be themselves than they’d ever had in the place they grew up in. 

Apparently, Mac had broken from the mold in a big way. 

“I don’t like him,” Mari said of the boyfriend, “he’s smarmy.” And that was all she ever said on the subject. 

If Mac causing me to consider my own sexuality the previous year had put me in a tailspin, imagine what Mac’s own open display of his shifting sexuality did to me. 

That summer wasn’t anything like the relief I expected from the blur of frosh year at the UW. It was merely the same sort of indistinct muddle, just different scenery. There are a few scenes, though, that I can replay with some clarity: 

A show at the Capitol Theater, crowd packed tight as spawning salmon, blue glare from a stage hosting rock boys in denim and leather who stood pale and insubstantial as ghosts and Mac front and center in the memory cradling the “smarmy” guy who always reminded me of a Chihuahua, Mari back in a dark corner perched on a ledge and smoking her endless cigarette while surveying the crowd with her green cat’s glare; 

Waking in a deserted darkened living room—Mari and Mac’s apartment—next to another girl I didn’t remember from the night before who lay hot and sticky beside me, looking too young and too innocent in her sleep so that I felt my throat tighten and my eyes burn; 

The sudden flare of illumination in the dark and damp backseat of a car cruising down I-5, flame glowing against pastel swirls of blown glass and the sweet cloying green scent that always follows as sure as the haze that’s as much the muzzy high as the actual smoke; 

A fresh morning in green and blue and yellow, perched on a fence again, inhaling clean cold air and hot smoke, a small girl hand on my knee as she said, “Where have you gone Matty? You’re so far inside yourself I can’t hardly see you anymore.” 

I kissed her then. 

If I were to carve a Mari kiss, I’d carve it as dark and swirling as smoke and as insubstantial, in the sturdiest wood I could cut with a knife, and then I’d burn it to ashes and toss it all up on the wind. That’s what it’s like sometimes, the times I remember most, seared there still after the burning. 

In August we drove Mac to the airport and he flew away to France and culinary school. The Chihuahua boyfriend cried all the way home. I’m pretty sure Mac never saw him again—I know I never did. 

I went back to UW and football, and Mari joined me there in September. 

We saw each other about twice a month, for coffee or a meal, after we found out our college lives would never mesh. Mari wouldn’t set foot on Greek Row and I was too wrapped up in the lifestyle to leave it—or too insecure. 

One of the first weekends after classes started, we sat on a bench somewhere on the park-like campus in the last gasp of an Indian summer with cigarettes and coffee and our latest emails from Mac printed out to share. I’d found a good-sized piece of pine and was absently stripping the bark from it as I play-by-played the last away game for Mari. A couple recurring girls rolled over to that fall from the previous year—and I remember them because they were the sort who would hook in their claws as deeply as possible so you couldn’t forget—stopped on the path before us. “Matty Munroe, what the hell is this?” one said with an imperious snap of a bubblegum wad. 

“Uh, what?” 

“That,” she said, pointing with a lethally manicured index finger. 

I looked at Mari. Her hair probably hadn’t been combed that week and she wore her customary uniform of hobo gear, layered on with abandon despite the warm air. I fumbled for some scathing reply, but none was needed when Mari widened her eyes (going from already large and unusually luminous to impossibly enormous and admittedly creepy) and bared her teeth, which flashed shiny white and featured unusually outsized and pointy canines. 

The other girl squeaked and dragged the bitchy one away. 

Mari wrinkled her nose and said “DeeDee clone.” 

I had nothing to say on the matter. 

And then it came down—it was either the end of January or the Start of February. Football season was over and the freaky Seattle trees, the ones that think it’s spring in the dead of winter, were starting to drop their pink blossoms. The sky was orange where the streetlights reflected off the haze, what my mom Celeste calls a Halloween sky. Mari and I scuffed along the sidewalk shoulder to shoulder, our white breath mingling. I hadn’t seen her in a while, probably since around Christmas, and I remember being a little surprised at the way she looked—even more pale than usual so that I could trace blue veins under her rice paper skin. A strong blue line just below her left eye pulsed, and the skin on her lips was tattered and white. 

It was my own idea to take a break from my usual run of parties, and while Mari seemed reluctant at first to take me along to wherever it was she was headed that Saturday night (I didn’t care where, I only knew if I had to watch one more kid spew the contents of his stomach after chugging too fast I was going to end up blowing a gasket and probably tear some shit up), but after she agreed she seemed more optimistic about the prospect than I did. 

I know what she was wearing because it was very non-Mari. I can probably count on one hand the times I’ve seen her in heels and a dress, but she wears them like she was born to. Under all the lumps and layers of her usual outfit you don’t notice how straight and graceful her posture is, or the long slender stems of limbs and neck. The dress was cherry red and made of scarf-like scraps that fluttered like flames. Her eyes were dark under the tousled hair, and glittered feverishly. She gripped the crook of my elbow as we made our way down the street. 

The house she took me to was older—with a little more neglect and the right kind of story it could easily fill a child’s dream of the neighborhood haunted house. It was tucked at the end of a dead-end road, and you would hardly guess anything could sit there so isolated, only a block or so away from the tangle of busy thoroughfares leading out of the U-district to Capitol Hill, downtown and the Interstate. 

The people there were the freaks of high schools across the nation on their ways to growing up. In groups like that one was, you can pick out the process in its stages, from the awkwardness and proud defiance and the shame of not fitting in all covered up with a layer of all-out manufactured weird that blatantly shouts “Fuck you all! I don’t care anymore!” to the acceptance of individuality and comfort of each in his own skin and the unusual but more tasteful panache of a style tailored more specifically and thoughtfully rather than the uniform culled from the racks. 

That’s when I met John McGee. 

I was getting quite a few long stares at my J Crew chinos, which wouldn’t have been so odd alone but paired with a blue cashmere sweater they stood out like a prom dress at a funeral (actually, some of those people may well have worn a prom dress to a funeral, so that may not be the best analogy). Anyway, sticking out from the crowd like that wasn’t what I was used to. 

And then he broke through the multitudes—not so much a Moses parting the Red Sea as a trained monkey working a paying crowd. 

He was small, especially next to me, and he reminded me very strongly of a cross between a ferret and a mongoose—the playful slyness and silliness of the former, but an almost indiscernible coiled alertness and edge of predatory intelligence of the latter buried underneath. 

“Mari, my love, what on earth have you brought us?” he said, running a hand down my sleeve. I remained steady in the face of the challenge. “Your tastes are ever eclectic darling.” 

“This is Matt,” she said. “He’s not mine.” 

“Well then.” The little man’s muscles relaxed a fraction, the tone of his voice shifting from dangerous-inquisitive purring to something softer and gentler. “We’ll just have to get Matt something to drink. Come on now dear, let John take care of you.” He took me by the arm and led me away, and I caught a last glimpse of Mari, walking smoothly away in a swirl of flame. 

At first I was too bewildered to really think about John’s hand on my arm, and later his arm around my waist. Then I was too drunk. I was bombarded with showers of icy cold, candy sweet or tangy spicy drinks presented to me in an array of stylish glassware, too pretty to be as lethal as they eventually proved. 

Even having been there and lived thorough the experience, having gone over and retraced my steps that night as thoroughly as possible, even taking into account my extreme intoxication, I still can’t explain exactly the reasons why I did what I did that night. What combination of things would cause a young man of my mindset and lifestyle (at that time) to act in such a way? True, I’d considered the idea that I might be bisexual previously, but that had been some years before, and the way I lived after that, up until that night, would seem deterrent enough to any sort of slide in a hetero-flexible direction. 

Mac says, however, even with my mindset where it was just then, the beliefs of the subconscious mind will usually take over due to the animalistic nature of sexual arousal, and more especially under the influence. He believes it isn’t in me to prejudice sexual attraction based on gender, no matter what I might be telling myself that month. According to Mac, I was apparently raised to be too open-minded and trusting, too attuned to altruistic love to be otherwise. 

This could very well be true, but it doesn’t matter in any case because any way you look at it, it happened, and I’m still inclined to put 80 percent of the blame on alcohol and the remaining 20 percent at total and complete dead boredom with life-in-general that year. 

This all puts me in mind of a story Mac likes to tell. He calls it “Greener Jesus and the Fat Man.” The story takes place in 1999 at a three-apartment toga party at Evergreen State University (a.k.a. hippie-freak-weirdo central). According to Mac, he and Mari saw this with their own eyes. 

It was coming upon the hell-breaking point of the gathering, where the venue is packed to standing room only and the alcohol is nearly gone, the weed smokers have all found their happy places and everyone else has begun to descend towards madness with the gleam of cheap keg beer in their eyes. 

No one knew how it started, but a shouting match broke out in the center of the packed living room. The combatants consisted of a coal black man of massive proportions, both in height and girth, dressed in a tent-like football jersey, and a small, wiry Jesus hippie—you know the type, long haired and bearded, dreamy and soft spoken—wearing a dingy white sheet wrapped around his string-bean body and a leafy wreath on his greasy head. 

As all eyes slowly locked on the pair, the fat man bellowed in a drunken slur, “Shu— Suck my dick, little man!” and dropped trou. 

Conversation stopped and quiet fell as Jesus collapsed to his knees and latched his mouth onto the fat man’s penis. The crowd, mesmerized, leaned forward almost as one to observe with wide eyes. It was a near-holy damper of silence that held the room as Jesus performed eager fellatio, and the fat man came with a triumphant “Yeah! He did it! Jesus sucked my cock!” and Jesus finished with a punctuation of a slurp, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“Oh my god he swallowed,” a girl said in an awed whisper and the party burst into a cacophony of noise while the fat man (jeans pulled up and buttoned now) shouted over and over “He sucked my cock! That freak sucked my cock!” 

Mack swears on his own cock it’s a true story, and Mari corroborates. 

Anyway, my sources say the fat man didn’t remember the incident afterwards and vehemently denied it ever after, no matter how many of the hundred-odd witnesses tagged him for a liar. 

The point is—and I do have one—if you get enough intoxicants in a man’s system he’ll do just about anything, especially if it gets his rocks off. 

I was certainly drunk enough that night. I slurped down whatever anyone handed me as McGee led me around by the elbow and played social butterfly, people watching with the sort of wide-awake interest I hadn’t had since my first month in the U-district, a freshman at UW. 

Bemused as I was with the new sights and sounds and topics of conversation that skimmed the surface of my mind and flew about up there like a shiny rainbow-iridescent swarm of new-hatched dragon flies, I hardly noticed when John McGee led me out to a deserted back balcony. I just stared up at the hell-colored night sky, thinking it was a pity I couldn’t see the stars. In the black nights of my home territory, the whole of the Milky Way is visible some nights. 

“Matt, look at me,” McGee said, and startled, I did. He clamped his hands onto my shoulders, raised up on his toes, and locked his lips to mine. 

I remember thinking, shocked into the admission, “Holy shit, the guy can kiss.” 

And like falling into a cold deep lake, after that first shock of the plunge when you instinctively start swimming, I instinctively kissed back, until I surfaced for air and sputtered “What the fuck man?!” 

And also like I’d taken a plunge into a fucking cold lake, I felt considerably sobered. 

“What’s wrong?” McGee asked, hooking a hand in my waistband. 

“Dude, I’m not a fucking fag,” I said, and removed his hand. 

“Matt, you kissed me back,” McGee said with calm reason, and then with a pointed look at me in an area other than my face, “and you can’t tell me you’re not attracted to me sweetie.” 

I felt my face go hot and after an automatic “Don’t call me sweetie,” said, “Look man, I decided a long time ago I wasn’t going to deal with this kind of shit—I don’t want this kind of life and you,” I said, poking my finger at his chest, “are definitely not going to be the one to change my mind.”’ 

McGee looked up at me and laughed. “Oh get over yourself hotshot,” he said, shoving me back towards a deck chair. Not in a state to keep any sort of balance I fell back into it, sitting down hard. 

“Ow.” 

“Just relax,” McGee said, climbing onto my lap and rolling up his sleeves in a terrifyingly clinical manner. “I promise it won’t hurt a bit.” 

“Goddamnit,” I muttered through the kiss, but decided not to fight it unless McGee decided to kick it up a level. It was only kissing after all. 

A few minutes—or a couple dozen—later, I looked down into the backyard. Mari stood there smoking in a circle of people, but instead of participating in the conversation she was looking up at the balcony—up at me—with a small untranslatable sort smile. She gave me a little wave before turning her attention to the guy next to her. And I turned mine back to McGee, removing his hands from the button of my pants for the umpteenth time, saying “I’m not kidding John. Do not go there.” 

That’s the sort of step it takes time to get used to, something like that. You walk around in a daze almost. One minute your mind is on what it’s supposed to be doing—math homework, walking to class—and the next minute: flashback. Your face goes red, your mouth goes dry and your palms start to sweat. But what makes your heart race, as your eyes dart around like a paranoid idiot, is the thought Does anyone know? What if someone knows? 

And god forbid any of my usual crowd found out. I’d be meat. 

A week after the incident with John McGee I got an email from Mac. I must have been acting weird enough to even worry Mari, because she would never have said anything had she not been seriously afraid for my mental or physical health. 

Mac wrote he’d heard I was walking around campus acting like a fugitive and if I didn’t want anyone to know what I’d been up to I should snap out of it. 

“Mari said the guy’s been asking for your number. I went ahead and told her to give it to him, because I know from experience the only way you’re going to get him out of your system is to see him again,” Mac wrote, proving once again he and Mari know me better than I know myself. “I gotta say I was surprised at first when Mari told me about it,” the email continued, “but really it’s not so odd. The signs were there. And it’s nice to see you finally expanding your horizons Matty.” 

That last part caused me a bit of mild anger. “What fucking signs?” I muttered to myself for about an hour, “nice to see you expanding your horizons my ass! He’s two years younger than me!” Then I went to a party where I collared a couple blondes and proceeded to enjoy myself with them—probably just to prove I could. 

But the next day I gave in and called the number John McGee had programmed into my phone the weekend before. After a couple dates (both well away from anyplace I knew anyone of my acquaintance would be hanging out) I knew we made better friends than anything else, and roped McGee back into line. Despite everything we managed to remain friends, and he became my guide into the world of picking up men. 

And thus began my double life.


	3. Chapter 3

THREE

I look up to see Mac leaning against the doorway. He’s wearing sweats and goose bumps and tattoo sleeves and his hair is sticking up in the back. He yawns, reminding me at the moment of the scrawny 12-year-old I first met. “You want breakfast?” he says through the yawn, crossing his colorfully-decorated arms over his chest. 

“Are you cooking?” 

He nods, scratching himself. 

“Hell yeah,” I say. “You know, I expected to get fed a lot more often, living with a chef. What’s the occasion? 

Mac shrugs. It’s a habit I think he picked up in Europe, because I don’t remember it from before. “Gotta use up the salmon Mari bought—the last thing I wanna do when I’m home is cook after spending eight hours a day in a kitchen at work, but you know what Mari does to fish.” 

“What does Mari do to fish?” I ask obediently, wiping the blade of my knife on my jeans. 

“She microwaves it!” Mac spits, the very prospect blasphemous. In Mac’s religion, all microwaves should be consigned to melt in the fires of culinary hell. 

“Can I see?” he asks, moving forward and holding out his hands for the mostly-finished old man. 

He gingerly turns the man around in his hands and then breaks into a grin. “Dude! It’s Hal!” 

“Who?” 

“You don’t know Hal? Of course you know Hal,” he murmurs. “This is so obviously Hal. You know, he sits on that bench by the one place down by the market and plays ‘My Funny Valentine’ and ‘Strange Fruit’—so’s I always pick him up the strangest kinda fruit I can find when I’m at the market.” 

That’s our Mac. Everyone’s a friend, and no one is safe from his friendly conversation. 

“You gonna put this in the gallery? We gotta show Hal—bring him around to see it. He’ll get a kick outta that.” 

Mac sets the man apparently known as Hal on my work bench and I sling an arm over his bare shoulders. He hooks a hand in my waistband as we survey the basement. 

“This is gonna take a fucking week. Fuck,” Mac says, dropping his head onto mly shoulder. I kiss his hair then push him towards the stairs. 

“Food!” 

In the kitchen Mari is smoking by the sink, ashing a cigarette into the drain. Like Mac she hasn’t bothered with much clothing and wears only the plaid flannel shirt, which is pretty much a dress on her anyway. 

She’s watching the coffee maker drip into the pot with the intensity of a cat who’s cornered a mouse. 

“Morning beautiful. You’re gonna hafta take that outside,” Mac says, taking her by the shoulders and guiding her out the back door. Still possessed by the morning zombie, Mari lets him push her barefooted straight into a puddle on the back deck. 

“Goddamnit Mac, are you trying to get her sick again?” I say, scooping up a pair of slippers from the laundry room. 

“She was smoking in my kitchen.” Mac opens the window above the sink and ineffectively waves a towl in the air before shoving two full coffee mugs at me. “The smoke gets in the food and the food tastes like shit. You want your salmon omelet to taste like shit? No. I don’t think so.” He turns towards the door and gives me a little shove. “Take mon cher her coffee. Have a cigarette. Outside. Leave my kitchen.” 

I try to remember if Mac went off on hyperactive tantrums like that before Europe—I think he must have, but he’s picked up an exotic sort of twist, an odd manner of punctuation. I kind of like it. 

Outside, Mari’s lit a new cigarette. I hand her a coffee cup and pull her back under the ledge, nudging her feet towards the moccasins—Mac’s, so they’re a good five sizes too large, but they’re dry. 

In routine, she hands me a cigarette from her breast pocket and lights it—I wonder where she managed to find a Care Bear Zippo. 

“What are you thinking about Mar?” 

“Mmm. Camaros. How fast could a Camaro go under moderate weather conditions?” 

“Um, it would depend on how old it was, and then how well-cared for, if there were any mods, custom tires… Knowledge for the book, or just because you want to know?” 

“Don’t know yet. I’m not sure if the Camaro will need to go fast.” She drags in deep from her cigarette. “Mac saving my fish from the microwave?” 

The light dawns. “You bought that fish because you knew he wouldn’t be able to stand seeing you cook it, didn’t you?” 

She grins, flashing her pointy canines, tosses her cigarette into the butt bucket. I follow her inside. 

It’s funny about Mari. You don’t really picture her doing anything for a living like what she does. You could maybe see her behind a tavern counter, the taciturn barista at a hole-in-the-wall café. She looks like she belongs in a used clothing store, or a used bookstore—some place where the bits and pieces come to roost and be gathered by enterprising souls who will find some new use for them, or some place where the souls who are made up of reused bits and pieces themselves gather. And Mari would sit silent queen over them all, looking over and into and through each with eyes the color of empty Rolling Rock bottles. 

Then again, maybe you would pin Mari as a writer, because what else is a writer but someone who gathers up chunks of life, shines them up and dusts them off and shows them to you in a way you wouldn’t have thought to look? But you’d probably imagine her a poet reading something deep and indecipherable in a darkened room; an earnest student of life striving to compose a great American novel or at least the newest hipster bible for the 20-something anti-trendsetters dreaming cheap red wine and black coffee or pink drinks in martini glasses in those charming shithole cafés scattered across the nation. 

As usual, Mari doesn’t walk the line of expectation. Mari refuses to even be in the same room with that line. Mari writes under two pseudonyms. One of these alter-egos writes teen serial romances, books for the followers of the Olson twins and the dramas on the WB. The other alter-ego writes very pretty books about fairies that live in the city, in alleyways and deserted buildings and junkyards, having moved there from deep forests in order to see the world. It’s the second set that made that pseudonym famous, followed by almost a cult of girls from 13 to 30. I remember studying with a couple of those girls who would have sneered at Mari, had they ever seen her with me, gushing over those books. 

And maybe that’s why Mari is the paradox she is. It’s the kind of private joke we all three live for. 

The smell of breakfast breaks my reverie. Mac has set a plate of eggs and a fresh cup of coffee on the coffee table in front of me. I look down to discover the Play Station controller in my hands—I’ve been playing Vice City, though I hadn’t realized it until Mac sat on the couch beside me, second controller in hand. Through an open doorway, I can see Mari in the spare bedroom we converted to an office, pounding away at the keyboard. 

Mac leans over me to look in and barks an order: “Mari! Eat!” 

“I am.” 

“No you’re not and you hate cold eggs. I know why you bought that fish, woman!” 

She growls, but I can see her pick up the plate. 

“If you knew she knew you’d cook it, why did you give in?” I ask Mac. 

“Because if I hadn’t, she still woulda cooked it in the microwave. She’ll cook eggs in the microwave—an omelet! Just pours the eggs on a plate and nukes it. I’ve seen it.” Mac shudders. “And then she ate it right in front of me.” 

Yeah, she would have. 

I lean back into the couch, plate warm in my lap. The morning is odd to me, and after a minute of chewing on the fish and eggs, I pick out what doesn’t fit: it’s been a hell of a long time since we were all together like this, lazy on a Sunday morning. 

Mornings like this were almost routine from the time we first met to the time we left our childhood homes one by one, first our get-togethers after rifle club meetings, then after weekend sleepovers at my moms’ house, and finally the mornings after the parties at Mari’s, quite a lot like this actually, sitting dazed in the mess of the night before leaning on each other almost to make sure we we’re all still present and accounted for, alive and whole, refueling courtesy of Mac. 

Forking another mouthful, I consider why it doesn’t seem as strange as it should. 

Probably it’s Mac. 

Mari isn’t the only paradox in this relationship. Sometimes, out with Mac, I entertain myself considering how others might see him. He’s got the long lean build you’d see in a struggling musician, and the interesting sense of style as well—tattoos and piercings, leather and black nail polish, the works. He’s pretty as a girl though, with dark eyes and an olive complexion he got from French ancestors, and a fuck-you charm I think came down through the Scotch side. It’s entertaining to watch Mac work—or eat, or walk, or talk, do anything for that matter. He’s got this efficient grace almost at odds with his rock star sense of style, his mile-a-minute conversation and almost hyperactive quickness of movement left over from when we were kids. 

Right now, he sits beside me on the couch taking small, neat bites of omelet with his fork held almost daintily in tattooed hand, chewing each mouthful thoroughly around his tongue and lip rings before taking the next—back straight, muscles relaxed and still, plate balanced firmly on one upturned hand held about mid-chest level. 

Something about it makes my mouth go dry. 

Mac turns to look at me, black eyes glittering, mouth curved in a smug smile. “What’re you looking at?” 

I cough, reach for my coffee cup, and I can feel my cheeks heat up. 

Mac came back from France the fall of 2001. He joined us in Seattle in October, bunking in Mari’s apartment until he found a place of his own. I think Europe filled in the pieces for Mac—he returned with a veneer of urbanity—a set of gestures and turns of phrases, a devilish cock to his head that hadn’t been there before but that we could see at once were wholly Mac. 

He was almost immediately snatched up by a fancy little 4-star place on the waterfront, and the three of us saw each other pretty rarely after that. It wasn’t anything like a split—at Christmastime we all gathered at my moms’ house, and Mac and my mom made a huge dinner and the five of us sat around afterwards and watched old noir films and drank hot buttered rum until Celeste and I fell asleep, which has since become a tradition. Since almost the day we met we’ve never not been family. It was more like a temporary scattering from the nest. 

I’m a little ashamed to admit though that at that time I wasn’t paying a whole hell of a lot of attention to anything but myself and my own life. That fall and winter I went almost totally clean for football season. After the strain of near abstinence from anything interesting, I plunged into a round of partying and sex that gave me perpetually bloodshot eyes and a constant tremor to my hands, rendering any kind of pursuit of my woodcarving impossible—not that I would have had time for it anyway, as I struggled to stay above a 3.8 in my course load—I’d decided on an math major, which baffled my mothers, but I’ve always found something sort of soothing in the numbers of it, deconstructing and reconstructing a set of them, making all the pieces fit. 

I think it was in April or May that year I got a certain phone call from Mac. I was submersed in the depths of a paper for philosophy—I think that’s how I managed to pull the grades I did, the ability to totally lose myself in any academic endeavor, completely shutting out every aspect of the outside world, so it’s surprising I even heard my phone that day. I remember hearing the insistent ring, as if from very far away, and then sort of absently reaching for the thing, almost shutting it off automatically until I saw it was Mac. So I answered. 

“Hey Matty, you think you could give me a couple hours tonight? I’ve got something I wanna talk about. I’ll feed you.” 

I almost said no. John McGee was having a get-together at his place and wanted to introduce me to his new roommate. Failing that, there was a girl in one of my classes who’d asked me to stop by a party she and her housemates were having. And then I asked myself what the hell I was thinking—this was Mac, who rarely asked anything from me. 

So I told him I’d be there, called McGee and told him I wouldn’t, finished up my paper and arrived at Mac’s Capitol Hill apartment at the specified time. 

He opened the door, as usual half naked—since Mac was able to move out of his stepfather’s house, he’s celebrated his freedom from the leering gazes of dirty old men by throwing off his shirt and shoes any time and as soon as he’s comfortably in private. 

 

His face screwed into an unreadable expression, he accepted my offering of a fifth of Jack and sat me down at the table, disappearing into the kitchen. A few minutes later he emerged with a plateful of some sort of meat and cooked grains, a basket of bread and a glass of milk, and slammed them in front of me. “Eat,” he said, and sat down across from me, watching me until I brought a forkful of food to my mouth. 

“Matty Munroe, you look like shit,” he said. “What the fuck have you been doing? I thought at least you’d be able to take care of yourself.” 

I choked on a bite of whatever the meat was and washed it down with some milk. At a glance in the mirror before I’d left home I thought I looked better than usual, but my standards those days were pretty low. 

“This is good. What is it?” I asked, pointing at my meat with the fork. 

“It’s bunny meat,” Mac snapped. 

“Oh.” I chewed reflectively. “What do you mean about at least me?” 

“Never mind.” He sighed and selected a piece of bread from the basket, breaking off pieces to chew in between sips of red wine. 

“How come I don’t get wine?” 

“Finish your milk first you ingrate.” 

We sat in silence for awhile while I ate the Easter bunny and chewed over what Mac had said. I’d finished my milk, cleaned most of my plate, and was sipping on a nice merlot when I figured out what it was Mac hadn’t said. “There’s something up with Mari, isn’t there?” 

“Look, don’t worry about it,” Mac said, lighting a rare cigarette, which let me know he was definitely worrying about it. 

“Don’t worry about it? Mac, it’s Mari. If there’s something going on I want to know.” 

“You don’t really good enough to worry about anything but yourself Matty. What the fuck is going on with you?” 

“I honestly don’t think you should worry about me Mac. I’m just pulling a pretty heavy course load is all,” I said, taking one from his pack of Gitanes. 

“And pulling a pretty heavy party load,” he said dryly. 

“When don’t any of us?” I take another drink of wine, look at the smoking cigarette held in my first two fingers. “And, uh, there’s also spring practice…I’ve got to quit this shit. 

“Smoking?” 

“No, football,” I say, taking a deep drag—and hacking up a lung as a result. “And smoking. Except I don’t really. Smoke, I mean. Just—“ 

“How are you passing drug tests?” 

“Mac, I’m not doing any drugs.” 

“Right. Yeah Matty, and I don’t sleep with men.” 

“You sleep with just as many women,” I pointed out in the spirit of accuracy. 

He crossed his arms over his chest and glared. The attempt at menace looked ridiculous on his baby face. 

I believe I’ve mentioned how it was Mac who first made me realize I could be attracted to men. I’m going to do a little bit more explaining about that here for a minute before I continue on. 

Being attracted to women and men—it’s very different aspects of each gender that draws me to each. Take a woman—in fact, what the hell, take any woman. I bet you there’ll be something about her that draws me like a fucking mosquito to one of those blue glowing bug zapper porch lights. It could be something as elemental as a great smile, a nice set of breasts, or the way she swings her ass when she walks. Or it could be something more elusive—for the connoisseur, per se—such as the perfect and practiced grace of a habitual movement like brushing her hair from her eyes, the way the back of her neck smells after a brisk walk to class in the autumn chill when her perfume is mixed with the woodsy fresh scent of outside and just the barest hint of girl sweat. I’ve even been embarrassingly aroused at just a look—it wasn’t even an attractive girl who shot that look my way, but there was something about the fast but so thorough up-and-down my body with her eyes, the tiny sure smile and quick flick of the tip of her tongue to her top lip. That girl knew she could take me, any time, any place, and probably four more like me before even breaking into a healthy sweat. I probably would have let her—just offered myself up right then and there—if I hadn’t been on my way to a lit final exam. 

With guys though it’s not that easy. I probably never would have made it through high school if just anything set me off. I spend a significant amount of time in locker rooms and never think about any of the other guys in that way—well hardly ever, not the kind of thinking that would get me started or whatever. There’s got to be more to a guy than just something physically attractive that sets me off. It’s got to be the whole package, so to say. And I don’t go for a particular type—take given examples Mac and John McGee. Not that they’re even in the same class, but something had to speak to me, hit a deep note somewhere inside, before I got to that point of sweaty palms and clenched stomach muscles, NASCAR-fast racing pulse. In McGee’s case, I think it was just that he was such a scrappy little guy—he latched onto me like a terrier will get a rat in his jaws and not let go. It was kind of endearing. 

With Mac, well, god—he’s just Mac. Everything about him appeals to me. 

I’d forgotten that when Mac went away—hell, before that, I’d forgot when I went away to college. First I returned to find him hooked up with this revolting little rat-dog of a kid, which would turn anyone off what had been at that point just a boyish crush already dampened by months of separation. And then he left for Europe and he was just my friend Mac again, with miles and miles of land and sea between us. It didn’t change much when he got back—for one, I hardly saw him. 

But there he sat, bare armed and bare chested but for the tattoos on his whipcord arms that would eventually become full-fledged sleeves and I was shoved back years. Only this time wanting him wasn’t anything confusing like it had been back then. It was as clear cut as that night two weeks before I’d spent with a guy I’d met at an art gallery McGee’s friend Paulo dragged me to. 

I swallowed, shook my head to clear it. “You do still, right? Sleep with women. Not just men. You wrote to me about it from France.” 

When Mac first started dating Chihuahua Boy, he’d been pretty sure he was gay. But apparently French women opened his eyes and his mind (and everything else) his first month in Paris. He’d written me about it, an email I’ve still got: “So really man, I guess I think of myself as the most evolved you can get. We don’t need anymore people, right? No need to make more babies. So no one needs to feel guilty about fucking just for fun. Why limit myself? There are no limits! Well, except for animals and kids. I’m not a fucking perv.” 

Mac was clearing the table, looking either disgusted or disappointed, or both. 

“What?” 

“Matty, my friend, you can’t even keep your mind on one thing at a time.” He set the stack of dishes down and gripped my shoulders with both hands. “You’ve gotta get a hold of yourself man.” 

“No, you get a hold of yourself. Something about Mari’s obviously got your panties in a twist and now you’re seeing problems everywhere. I told you I’m fine. Just a little overloaded, but I’ve got football, a 3.8 GPA and about three different groups of friends. A little drinking, but no drugs, ok?” 

“Ok.” Mac dropped his gaze, sank down into the chair next to me. He was trembling a little, and I ruffled his hair, slipping for a moment—maybe one of the last moments—into the big brother role I’d occasionally played in our trio. 

“Now you don’t look so good. What is up Mac?” 

“You really are doing ok in school and stuff?” 

“Swear.” 

He took a deep shaky breath. Even with that baby face, it was hard sometimes remembering Mac was only 19 then—he was always the most together, most sure of himself of us—but at moments like this it showed. “Mari’s not. Doing ok. I ran into her last week at this really fucked-up party this older chick took me to. I took a taxi home after 20 minutes but Mari was there on purpose, you know? I’ve heard of shit like this but I haven’t ever seen it. I should have brought her home with me—at least asked her if she wanted to leave, but I just wanted out of there…” 

I gripped his knee in the way of comfort, said “Hey, it’s ok. It sounds like you were scared. If I was scared I would have got the hell out of a place without thinking much about it either.” I gave him a minute to collect himself—once he started talking about it he almost just crumbled—and then asked—“Uh, Mac? What kind of shit are we talking here?” 

He sort of shivered and shuddered all at once, and reached for his cigarettes. As his hands were shaking, I extracted one from the pack and lit it for him, waited patiently through a first drag, then a second. Then, in a near-whisper, the whites of his eyes showing, “Like chains. And whips. And…” he rasped out, not quite able to go on. 

“Oh.” Was that all. 

Our Mac is a loving, nurturing sort of soul. It comes out in his cooking—the desire to take care of people through feeding them up—his gentleness and concern for even strangers—and his lovemaking, apparently. At that point, the idea that anyone, especially someone he loved, could get any kind of pleasure from pain of what he would see as torture was utterly foreign to him, and horrifying. Mari though—I’d known that about her for a while. That knowledge of Mari was congruous in my mind with her morbid obsession with weapons, the reason we’d all met in the first place. 

“That’s not all.” 

“Oh?” I thought he’d go into deeper description about the party. 

“So I called her a couple days later. I mean, I called her right the next day, but she didn’t answer her phone. But when I got a hold of her, I went over to her apartment. She’s been over here, to my place, a few times—well, a lot of times—since I got back and…” he crushed out his cigarette. He’d still had a ways to go on it, but he automatically reached for another. 

I held back on the “oh” this time, but I had a good feeling by then where all this was going. 

“So anyway.” He took another deep breath. He kept taking these deep, yoga-type cleansing breaths, but they didn’t seem to be doing anything for him, maybe because of all that dirty French smoke he kept taking in with them. “Anyway, she lives in a shit hole. It would be a nice place, except it’s dirty. I mean, really filthy. And I guess there’s this guy who lives with her there.” Another deep breath. I wished he would just hurry and finish with the telling. It was pretty obviously hurting him. 

“Right. Anyway. I got her out of the house…” 

From the rest of Mac’s uncharacteristically slow monologue delivered in gasps and fits and starts, I was able to piece together the rest of the story. 

Whereas I was not ingesting anything illegal (not seriously or often anyway) according to Mac, Mari was. And it wasn’t the kind of stuff you take lightly. Because of the way Mac was carrying on I took it with a grain of salt, and because it wasn’t something I wanted to spend much thought on: Mari, who already had a few screws loose, with a meth habit. 

I don’t know if she told him straight out, which doesn’t sound like Mari, or if he figured it out on his own. Coming from where we do, it’s something Mac would recognize. The fine citizens of Lewis County are used to being self-sufficient in certain areas. They’ll grow or manufacture their own, and from elementary school on there are few kids who can’t name you the location of at least three labs—some in their own backyards, the most popular form of these labs being the old dilapidated camper-trailer, a.k.a. the fifth wheel—and most of us could list you over half the ingredients used in a batch of the stuff, including many items commonly found in your average household. 

So of course there are very few of us who escape the county without having some kind of run-in with methamphetamines—either by ingesting it ourselves in experiment or otherwise, or by having a friend or family member who was fond of it. I knew in some vague corner of my mind Mari fit into the former category—she’d tried it—but it was never something I’d spent a lot of time thinking about until just then. I mean, between the three of us there wasn’t much we hadn’t tried. But of course after Mac brought it up my mind scrambled in all directions searching for memories of Mari and meth from the previous few years or so. 

That wasn’t everything though. When Mac finally had Mari ensconced in a booth at one of the many Thai restaurants in the neighborhood (I could see her there then—he hardly had to describe the scene—little Mari like a ghost bag of bones who accidentally dressed in her grandfather’s funeral clothes instead of her own, wired like a deaf and dumb kindergartner who’s been fed candy for breakfast and then made to sit still, shifty eyes like a kid who’s robbed a convenience store and still can’t quite believe he got away with it—yeah, I could see the truth of it then) he dragged from her the other pertinent details of her life. She’d withdrawn from all her classes (“Says there’s not much point--she’s bored and she already makes enough to live on”) was behind on more than one deadline (“She says not by much but you know that’s bullshit when she’s not looking you in the eyes and I saw her laptop myself just before that and it was coated with dust") and the loser who was living with her was pretty much a leach. 

“She says she’s mentoring him. I ask her what the fuck that’s supposed to mean and she says she’s just helping him out until he gets his book finished. So I ask does he have a job and she says he writes mostly, and I say so he’s just sponging off you right? And she gets that blank look on her face like when she’s just not gonna talk anymore. Says he’s got a really solid first few chapters and I don’t get a word after that from her. Nothing from then on until I walk her home.” 

“Shit.”

“Is that all you can say?” Mac bolted to his feet, that face all damp and blotchy-red, and looked ready to take me down. 

“Hey, hold it.” I grabbed his arm and steered him to the living room, sat him on the couch. “Look, I’ll go over there, see what’s up, see what I can do.” 

His mouth still trembled and I nudged him over towards me, slung an arm over his shoulder, meaning to be comforting-like, like a brother. Mac’s always craved touch more than any of us though, and from the start Mari and I—and later even my moms—have been bombarded with everything from casual caresses to all-out bear hugs. At that gesture of comfort, the kid snuggled up against me like a goddamn motherless puppy. Tentatively, I brought my other arm around to close the circle, and Mac clung on. 

I still can’t say quite how it felt, that first gesture of reaching out to him, but I knew one thing pretty definitely—I wanted to kick Mari’s boney little ass. 

I’d interrogated John McGee about Mari, but he claimed to know next to nothing. The only thing he knew, hew said, was that a few months before Mari and a few others had just slowly dropped off and out of the scene. 

“She’s living with this guy David Paulson—absolutely beautiful man, but he’s a terminal loser. Goes from one weak-willed woman to the next living off their goodwill. Personally, I’m surprised Mari bit on his line—she always seemed a little more savvy to me.” 

I had an idea about that though. 

And so it was that the next day found me pounding on Mari’s door. The intercom at the front door had been broken, and instead of trying Mari’s phone I waited for 20 minutes outside until someone came out, and therefore let me in. I wanted the advantage of surprise. 

True to Mac and McGee’s description, a skinny, scruffy guy opened the door. He was really attractive—I had to admit Mari’s taste hadn’t been impaired in that area—but apparently the state of their living quarters had defied accurate description. “Dirty” and “filthy” didn’t quite do the purported shithole justice. I wanted to gag. 

The guy at the door—Paulson, I assumed—shot me a nasty once-over look and asked what I wanted. When I told him I wanted to talk to Mari he growled at me and tried to shut the door in my face. At 6’4 I had a good six or eight inches on him and probably 60 or 80 pounds. The door was not shut, but held open enough for me to stick half myself inside and take a good look around. 

I was pretty sure then Mac was off on just the one guy living there—Mari’s never been one for a lot of stuff and the apartment was full to bursting with odds and ends and pieces of clothing so varied there’s no way it could have belonged to just two people. For instance, there was what looked like at least a D-cup black bra tossed over the back of a chair. If Mari even wore bras—which I didn’t think she did—it sure wouldn’t be a D-cup, as the girl has no figure to speak of. And I didn’t tag the guy I thought was Paulson as the bra-wearing type, as much as I’d decided to dislike him (which was even before I smelled him). 

The bra wasn’t my only clue either. There was another girl (after a practiced guesstimation I knew she wasn’t the owner of the bra either) sitting in front of a TV in a satin bathrobe, leisurely smoking a cigarette. As well as at least three other human occupants of Mari’s one-bedroom apartment, I counted no less than three cats draped over various pieces of furniture. There was the source of the smell, and one I wouldn’t have guessed. So far as I knew, Mari’d never had a cat in her life and wasn’t really interested in animals at all. As a rule she found humans more interesting, though at times less intelligent. 

Having lost the battle, failing to keep me out, the guy lost interest and ignored me. So I picked my way through the mess on the floor—it was dim and smoke-hazy inside so I only got a vague impression of wads of clothing and stacks of dirty dishes among other miscellanea—making my way to the bedroom, the most likely place to run down my quarry. 

She was there, lying cross-wise on the bed against another guy—which upped my count to five possible occupants of a one-bedroom apartment including Mari herself. It was a pretty good sized for what it was, but still that was a ridiculous number. 

This other guy was just as good looking as the first, so to this day I have no idea which one was the Paulson Mac and McGee spoke of. I never asked her. 

The two of them—Mari and the guy—were breathing, so I knew they were alive, but both sets of eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. Craning my neck, I could only see it as a plain white plaster ceiling, nothing interesting or out of the ordinary about it, so they probably weren’t looking at anything at all. I wondered if they were just sleeping with their eyes open. After a moment the guy said something to her—murmured it so low I couldn’t hear what it was—and Mari made some answering noise back so I knew they were awake. I cleared my throat and spoke up. 

“Uh, Mari? Could I talk to you a second?” 

They were both up, and wouldn’t have been startled more if I’d fired Mari’s 12-guage at the ceiling. Fucking tweakers. 

The guy was so confused and incoherent I almost would have felt sorry for him, if I’d had any emotion to spare. I didn’t though. Right at that moment everything I had was focused on Mari Macy. 

About 80 percent of the time, Mari’s as chill as the rest of us, stoned, drunk or sober. The rest of the time is when I’d advise those who value their limbs and their lives to watch out. The rest of the time, Mari is as unpredictable as a rabid dog, and just about as poisonous. Those are the times, back when we were still in high school, Mari would haul out that goddamn 12-guage and with a maniacal gleam in her eye head out back and shoot anything that moved—or didn’t. Or she had an old 22 target pistol she’d pull out, and she would drag us out with her and show us how she could shoot the spades and clubs out of aces at 50 paces, just like some aristocratic jerk with a set of dueling pistols back in the 1800s, or some fast young gun in the old wild west. 

I’ve got a memory of her from back in ’97 or ’98, standing with legs planted shoulder-width and sturdy on the hood of her dad’s convertible vintage jag, hands nearly hidden in the sleeves of an old olive drab coat she’d dug up somewhere but securely gripping an absolutely antique .38 wadcutter (fed like shit when either Mac or I used it, but for Mari it somehow worked like a charm), small frame steady and somehow completely disregarding the kick—like a superwoman, or with the strength of a madwoman, considering the steely glint in her eyes and the small concentrated smile. The ground is littered with starlings—every time she fires the flock in the old cherry tree raises as one, and Mari gets as many as she can mid-flight before they’re gone (they’re damn fast, the birds, but so is Mari). And then, proving brains smaller than the cherry pits they peck at, the flock slowly sweeps back around and resettles in the branches of the tree. Then BANG! It all starts again. The gun blew the birds all to hell—wasn’t much left of them after those shots. But it wasn’t like she needed the carcasses for anything. 

Mac and I stood there for hours watching her load shot after shot as the three of us slowly drained two cases of Budweiser, and the ground was strewn with gore and feathers. 

That was the look she had in her eyes when she stood and slowly advanced on my position, gun hand clenched tight. I wished for thicker protection than jeans and a t-shirt. 

Then she smiled at me. 

That’s always been a dangerous look for Mari—it’s not a happy thing, or a joyful thing. Babies learn to smile by example, right? When the people around you are happy—and as a baby, like a small animal, you can sense these moods of your caretakers instinctively—they smile, so you learn what a smile means. In Mari’s case though, I wonder when the first time she saw a real smile was. One parent completely insane, the other a cold-blooded shark, it stands to reason it wouldn’t mean for her what a smile usually does. 

So when she stalked towards me with that look on her face, I wasn’t sure what it meant, only that it probably didn’t mean anything good. She knew I wasn’t there for just a friendly visit. I knew where she lived, but it was almost an unspoken rule that the two of us meet on neutral ground, something more for the benefit of my reputation than hers at first, though it appeared the tables had turned. 

She stopped just short of me—greasy hair, smudgy eyes, bleeding lips—“What’s wrong? Are you ok?” 

That I wasn’t expecting. I blinked, asked if we could talk outside. She nodded and retrieved keys. The wind outside was unusually biting for spring but Mari wasn’t wearing her usual layers—her arms were bare and I couldn’t help zeroing in on the bruises. 

 

As she lit my cigarette (it was an orange plastic Bic, and that, as if all the other evidence wasn’t enough, brought home the hard truth of Mari’s state) I launched into her. 

A rousing “What the fuck?!” probably wasn’t the best way to begin airing my grievances, but that’s what came out, and as I couldn’t take it back I just went with it. I suppose at the core of it all I was hurt—hurt she’d turned away from us and towards such inferior specimens of humanity, not to mention entertainment, but I didn’t say any of that. I just tossed blame at her like I was a ball machine and she was the backstop: What’s wrong with you? What are you doing to yourself? How can you fuck with Mac like that—you do realize it’s more than just sex for him don’t you, you insensitive bitch? 

She just stood there stone-faced and took every hit. 

“You know what Matty?” she said, lighting up another cigarette and blowing the smoke away from my face, “You’re right.” 

“I am?” 

“Yes. Yeah, I’m making a mess here—I’m a mess. And I never was good enough for either of you. I know that, ok? I’ve always known that, I’m just surprised it took you so long to get to it.” 

“Fuck Mari, that’s not what I—” 

“Just leave it. Just leave—don’t call me, I won’t call you. Give Mac a kiss goodbye for me—that’s what you’ve wanted all along, right?” she sneered. 

“Mar—” 

Her cigarette butt landed at my feet. I searched her face, but I couldn’t read anything in it I wanted to see—no regret, remorse, no cry for help. It was blank as a virgin white sheet of paper. An untouched block of wood has more expression. 

“Right,” I said, and tossed my butt down to join hers. 

The hard part was telling Mac how it all went down. He cried, which was hard as hell for me to see, but after a while he said he understood. He said she just needed to get something out of her system, she’d come back around. I just nodded and smiled, sure he was just deluding himself. 

Thing is, the reason I’m remembering this now, is because of what she said about Mac: “That’s what you’ve wanted all along, right?” That defensive sneer in her voice, paired with the way Mac looked when I told him Mari was through with us. I know he tried to call her after that, and consistently got no reply. 

Mac picks up my plate and coffee cup and I watch his back as he goes through the office door, leans around Mari to pick up her plate. On his way around he brings his mouth down to her neck. She shrugs him off impatiently, and Mac shrugs philosophically as he carries the dirty dishes to the kitchen, stepping around last night’s mess of pint glasses and tumblers left on the floor.


	4. Chapter 4

There’s no suspense at this point, I know. Because I’m talking about what’s happening today, you know Mari eventually ends up back with us. But I’m going to tell you what happened in between, because therein lie some of my favorite parts. 

These are the parts, after you’ve seen the film three or four times, you pop the cassette or DVD in for, to fast forward through all the rest of the scenes just to get to those five or ten minutes interspaced through the hours of footage that make you laugh your ass off, sit on the edge of your chair, or that just make you feel safe and happy. 

It’s like when Mari buys a bag of trail mix. She picks out all the chocolate pieces and eats them, then throws away the rest. It’s the only place you can find salty chocolate—in trail mix. If you buy chocolate and salt it, it tastes gross, it’s not at all the same thing. So in order to get what you want, you buy a whole bag full of shit you don’t want, pick out the good parts, throw the rest away. 

In order to appreciate the good parts though—the few minutes of feel-good film footage, the salty chocolate, you have to know what comes in between: the scenes that tie the best parts together, the nuts and seeds and raisins. These parts suck, or they’re just plain old boring, but they’re a necessity to experience—at least once or twice—in order to know why the good parts are the best; in order to fully appreciate them. 

Holding Mac for the first time was like that. The reason he needed to be held and comforted sucked, it felt like shit at the time, but now the moment’s long passed I can go back and remember the way he felt there curled up against me, the smell of his hair and everything else, and I can enjoy reliving that moment knowing everything turned out all right eventually. 

It’s funny Mac never blamed me for Mari’s defection. It really was pretty much my fault. Now I know if I hadn’t said some of the things I said, acted the way I did, it might not have happened like that—so abruptly, so badly, with so much anger. 

We all have different coping methods when we hurt. Mari blows shit up. Mac runs away—when he was younger to deep inside himself, and now that he’s older to as far away from the source of the problem as possible, preferably out of the country. I’m probably the least predictable. I tune out always though, place my mind anywhere but the here and now, and then keep my mind as busy as possible—partying, working, fucking—whatever. 

So Mac scraped together another lump of his savings and took off for the south of France. The uncle of a friend of a friend or something had a restaurant there and was willing to take on an apprentice. 

For myself, I didn’t want to go home that summer. It wouldn’t be the same. And Mom and Celeste were thinking of renting out the property and moving back up to the Puget Sound area. They’d only moved south in the first place because they didn’t want me to grow up in the city. I decided to take some summer courses—classes I’d always been interested in and wanted to take but didn’t feel like I had the time or energy to devote to them they deserved. Art classes. 

I finally moved out of the frat house then with a couple other guys into a house in Wallingford. Both of them were completely baffled by my propensity for artistic endeavors. But endeavor I did. 

Sometimes you can love something so much it’s more of a burden than a blessing. It had been like that for me, and I hadn’t even realized it till the burden was cut away and allowed to float free and unhampered, to drift away in the current or sink to the bottom, depending on the nature of each. 

It was my own fault I’d let friends become a burden. Only an asshole reaches a state of mind like that, but I guess I’ve never claimed to be a sweetheart exactly. So the amputation made and the wounds carelessly sutured by my own indifference, breathing freely again I set about totally baffling two guys who thought they knew me as well as they knew themselves. 

Art—it’s something I was born into, my birthright I guess. As soon as I could make a fist my moms were always handing me a crayon or a paintbrush. As I got older this changed—in elementary school, learning it wasn’t exactly a manly thing to be always painting or drawing—and even if your subjects tended towards more male subjects like robots and dragons you were still a nerd—I left off. It was something that couldn’t be suppressed though, the urge to create, and I managed to find acceptable ways to give in to that urge with hunks of wood and a knife. The first couple years in college though, that hadn’t been so easy. Roommates will bitch when wood shavings and sawdust stick to bare feet. After a while artistic expression was suppressed yet again and only came out in burp-like spurts on business and math notes in the form of sketching the girls around me—to get caught drawing the surprisingly delicate jaw line and ear of the guy below and to the left of you is to draw unneeded speculation. 

Summer 2002 I let it all out. I didn’t confine myself to wood carving either, though I set up a workbench in the garage that received its fair share of attention. I painted—watercolor, oil, acrylic; I sketched in charcoal and pencil and ink and even Crayola; I cut apart magazines and made collages. 

I remember when one of the guys—Randy, who held the record for the most beers consumed in a five minute period the previous three years running—stumbled upon me one morning in the kitchen, 2 a.m., covered in oils from earlier endeavors, canvasses propped against the walls, and occupied with a new medium: a blob of wet clay. 

“What the fuck is with you Munroe? Are you in preschool now or some shit?” 

But for some reason I’d decided to get my act together. I was sober from April on. I met a girl in my painting and drawing class. 

Although this wasn’t a consideration the first time I asked her out, I was sure my moms would have liked her, had they ever met April. She definitely wasn’t like any girl I’d spent time with before—a far cry from sorority sister, even the pre-law ones, she was sweet and serious and usually fully clothed. 

You ever think you’re in love, and it turns out you never were, really, you just wanted to be so bad you scooped up the first available and mostly decent thing and just glommed on so tight there really wasn’t much difference anyway between your desperate focus and really being in love? 

Well maybe you haven’t, but obviously I have. 

Mac teased me about April after, about how she was a rather poor substitute for himself. I’ll never let on he was right, but that was it in one. 

I suppose, in this seething mass of humanity here on earth, though there are some of us who really truly don’t need anyone, those somebodies are very few. April was an anyone I acquired after Mari and Mac left. 

Like I said, Mari’s decision hurt, but not in the same way Mac’s did. Mari’s always been unstable, or rather, more ephemeral—almost sometimes like having a ghost for a friend, or a changeling—you expect her to blow away in a sudden gust of wind, or be called suddenly elsewhere by the fates. Mac’s different—a live wire, yeah, but steady despite that. I needed him to need me and he didn’t. Instead he got the hell out of town on less than two weeks notice and left me talking to empty air; staring at words on a computer screen he would send through telephone lines and cables from across an ocean and a continent. 

* * *

I remember the first time I saw April. I mean, I’d probably seen her around before and I know I’d seen her in class because I recognized her from that. But this was the first time I actually saw her. 

It wasn't long after Mac left, and I was feeling pretty low. Everywhere I looked something reminded me of Mac or Mari—I saw Mac in every dark-haired guy in black on the Ave, and when I retreated to the pathways of the forest-like campus of the U, the park benches and obnoxiously frolicking squirrels made me long for simpler days when Mari and I used to lounge around breathing in the fresh air along with our cigarette smoke. 

I was on the edge of crying and looking for something to distract myself with when I saw her. She’d set up an easel outside right in the middle of a sidewalk, though as it was a summer session the campus wasn’t exactly crawling with pedestrians. The easel was looking over a rail to a parking lot at the bottom of a steep ivy-covered incline, and she was outlining a Toyota 4Runner. She was totally engrossed in sketching the scene, wearing a childish fair-isle sweater (it was evening, and cooling) the girls I knew wouldn’t have been caught dead in and a long denim skirt thing. She was actually sort of dressed like my mom on the days Celeste makes fun of her for being schoolmarm-ish. 

Still, there was something about her that reached out and sort of tugged at me—the serious expression on a child-like face, masses of frizzy hair that wouldn’t stay in her attempt at a French braid… Or it could have been entirely the streak of green paint she got on her nose when she put away the sketching pencils and got out the palette that got my attention. 

I watched her from afar for a good 15 minutes or so, and then, hesitantly, I approached. I approached in the usual way, which is hat pushed up a bit to allow for maximum vision, charming smile in place, shoulders back and tongue lubricated with ready glib lies. And I totally froze up still 12 feet away. 

I was a guy used to only one or two scenarios, and nothing like what I was confronted with right then. Take a typical frat party: you’ve got alcohol flowing, paired with a bunch of kids who go there knowing the most likely outcome is that they’ll get drunk and get on each other. Faced with an array of choices, its’ not unlikely that one girl at least would choose me. I’m usually a gentleman, don’t get rough unless they specifically voice a request for it, was on a sports team, take care of my body and I’m almost always taller than any girl (unless they’re runway-tall and in heels). At a gay-boy party, the same pros exist on the list, added to the fact that I look and act pretty straight so someone will always want to take me on as a challenge at the least. 

In this scenario none of the usual standards applied. I had nothing to recommend myself to this girl. I wasn’t particularly smart or extraordinarily talented in any way. I had a feeling my status as a football payer would mean shit to her—maybe even bring me down in her estimation. 

I considered just passing on by, not stopping, not saying a single word to her. That would have been pretty cowardly though. Mac would have laughed at me. So I jammed my hands in my pockets, took a deep breath and approached my quarry. 

“Uh, hi. I’m—uh, in your class. Is that, uh—er, for…” 

She was looking at me like I was a bug—not even a significant sort of bug, like a big ugly one that’s sort of scary, but a little speck of a bug you’re wondering how to flick away without leaving a smear. 

“Uh, right,” I said, I could feel my face getting hot. “So, I’m Matt.” 

“I know who you are,” she said. “What I don’t know is why you’re talking to me. The lecture notes are posted on the class website.” 

My face went even hotter—they say blondes have more fun, but I think whoever said that never took the blush factor into account. It’s not super cool when your face, neck and ears light up like a neon sign at the slightest provocation. “I take my own notes, thanks,” I said, probably defensively. “Just because I’m a jock doesn’t make me automatically a moron. I just wanted to say hi.” I started to walk away. 

“What, you expect me to believe that? People like you don’t talk to people like me. Not unless they want something,” she said. 

I froze, turned around. I was pissed, which was good—it distracted me from that 3-foot tall feeling she’d just dropped like a widow-maker branch down on me. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? People like me? How fucking dare you presume to know me based solely on—fuck. Never mind.” I could feel myself choking up again and mortified by that fact I swung around to stalk away when she grabbed my arm. 

“Wait a sec. Are you crying?” 

“Fuck off,” I said—a childish reaction—struggling even more childishly to escape her hold without committing violence. 

“Hey, hold on. I’m sorry,” she said, her voice softer by several degrees, but not patronizing. I probably wouldn’t have taken that, and she must have known it. “Look, you’re totally right. I have no right to judge you or presume I know you just because of how you look or how you dress, ok? It’s just that I’m so used to taking shit from people like you…” 

“People like me?” I said coldly, scrubbing at my eyes with the back of my forearm. 

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I know nothing about you.” She put down her brush, held out her green paint-smeared hand. “Start over? I’m April Carey.” 

“Matt Munroe,” I said, after a reluctant moment, putting my hand in hers. She had nice eyes, sort of a whiskey color shot with gold. 

“So…You want to go get a coffee or something?” she said. “I’m sorry I came on so harshly. You look like you need a friend.” 

“Uh, yeah, I kinda do actually…” I searched her expression for the possibility she was fucking with me, but she seemed sincere. 

So I helped her pack up her gear and carried it for her to the Hub where we picked up some coffee, then outside in the square. 

Despite earlier overtures of friendship, she came out right with the defensive line as soon as we planted our butts down on a bench. “So why are you talking to me? I mean, if this is just a one-time thing because you’re having a bad day and you need someone to talk to you can forget it. I don’t want to be a single-serving friend.” 

I blinked at the Palahniuk reference. “Shit April. Calm down. We don’t even know if we’ll like each other once you get past your bullshit prejudices about who you think I am.” I pulled out a cigarette, lit it up. “You’re getting even our start over off on a bad foot.” She bit her lip, which I tried not to find cute. “Now why don’t you tell me why you were sure you hated me before you even spoke to me.” 

“Well,” she started, waving away my cigarette smoke. I tried to adjust myself so it wouldn’t blow in her face, but I wasn’t going to put it out for her—not yet anyway. “Guys like you,” she said, “usually don’t even notice girls like me. And when they do, they’re assholes to us. So I guess I’ve just learned to bring up my defense automatically.” 

I wondered why I never realized before what kind of stereotype I’d been lumped into—probably because I never really thought about it before. Mac, Mari and I have been fighting the labels and expectations others have laid on us all our lives. Hell, I probably owe my wide-receiver talents to the fact I had to learn to run like hell away from the kids who tried to beat the shit out of me before they decided the lesbos’ kid was an ok guy. After a while, I mostly learned to keep my head low and my mouth shut, so it was feasible April wouldn’t have a clue about who I was, but you’d think she might have an idea of who I wasn’t. If I didn’t usually go out of my way to make friends, I certainly never went out of my way to be a jerk to people, like some brothers I could name. 

“Ok,” I said. “The first thing we’ve got to do is dispense with this ‘guys like you’ shit. No, wait—I’m curious. Where did you pick up these preconceived notions and why did you apply them specifically to me?” 

She looked at me a minute, her head cocked—she was wearing these ridiculous earrings, bright green wooden parrots that bobbed around when she moved—and then she laughed. “Have you just been writing a paper or something? You’re talking like a sociology textbook.” 

I think I growled. 

“Ok, ok, sorry. Preconceived notions…” she took a sip of latte, then, “Well, you belong to a fraternity. That’s already going to give people certain ideas. You’ve got to know that.” 

I nodded reluctantly. 

“You’re a football player. There’s two. Then there’s the way you dress, stylish jock—”

I looked down at my clothes, eyebrows raised. “It’s just jeans and a t-shirt.” 

“But where did you buy them?” she countered. 

“Uh, I dunno. My mom’s—um, my mom buys them for me.” 

She laughed again. She had a really nice laugh—the spontaneous, unconscious kind. “Oh my gosh. Ok. I’m starting to get it now.” 

“Get what?” I could feel the flush starting up in my neck again, slowly creeping upward. 

“You have no idea, do you? Both my roommates last year had huge crushes on you. You didn’t even know they were alive, so I just assumed you were an arrogant asshole—“ 

“What? Who were they?” It came out as a squeak, and my cheeks flamed. 

“Matt, you wouldn’t know half the females who have schoolgirl crushes on you.” 

“You’re just playing withy me. How do you know all this shit about me anyway?” 

“Oh this is great. You’re not an ass at all, are you? You’re just an airhead.” Carelessly, she laid a hand on my knee. I put mine tentatively over it, so it wouldn’t leave. 

“I resent that.” 

“So, Matt. Why are you having a bad day?” She smiled at me. Now that the figurative sun had come out, I didn’t want to dwell on the clouds it had for the moment driven away. 

“It’s nothing. Now that you’ve got me figured out for the second time, why don’t we talk about you?” 

So we talked until our butts were numb, and then I carried her stuff back to her dorm room. I learned she would be a sophomore in September, and came from a rural part of Washington like I did. She’d been home schooled all her life, and once she broke out from under her parents’ thumbs she wasn’t willing to go back, so she stayed on for the summer sessions. She was an Art History major and could quote the Beatles album and verse. I managed to snag her phone number. 

I loved showing April new things—how to eat with her fingers in an Ethiopian restaurant, the rush of being packed tight in a crowd at a show, the debauchery of polishing off a cheap jug of wine between two in a night, how to walk around bare-ass naked in front of someone without self-consciousness (it took a lot of kisses and compliments—no hardship really—and the result of her loving her body almost as much as I did was well worth it). I loved finding new ways to make her laugh. 

My roommates joked that there must be something spectacular hiding under all those clothes for me to put in all the effort, but after a while it began to take less and less for April to loosen up. And I actually liked the schoolmarm look. I didn’t want the other guys to know what was under all those clothes. 

But the clothes began to disappear from her wardrobe rotation piece by piece to be replaced by trendy or vintage purchases from shops on the Ave. 

Sometimes, I would be working on an oil-on-canvas in the kitchen (in the beginning we liked to work on paintings together) that she had left me alone with so she could go have a couple beers and watch a movie with my roommates in the living room. 

I’m not sure if I should have resented April “getting a life,” as one of the guys put it. He said I was just trying to keep her all to myself, like her parents did. But I missed the old April—straightforward, not coy; her own woman, not just a copy of any other girl on campus. 

I brought that up when she broke up with me the end of August—to date the aforementioned roommate—but I must not have worded it quite like I wanted, because she threw our very first conversation back in my face. She said I was judging her by her clothes and her friends and how she chose to spend her time. 

And I thought, with a bizarre clarity, Well why shouldn’t I? Isn’t that at least a good chunk of who someone is? She’d tossed me a curveball and it hit me in the nuts—I couldn’t help but question everything I’d ever believed about who I was. 

Around the same time, I got a phone call from Mac, still in the south of France. He’d met a woman, he was in love, he wasn’t sure when or if he was coming back. He missed me though, and had I seen Mari? 

As a matter of fact I had. She had been sitting in the park with that guy again, sometime in July. Skin and bones, she looked worse than I’d ever seen her. I had been walking with April, hand in hand, and looked over to see her there—see her for the first time in months. She looked like a stick figure a child would draw, with big black eyes and no rhyme or reason to the order of her hair. Corpse-pale skin with a hectic flush to her cheeks, like a harlequin, a look the hobo tatters of her clothes only augmented. Body and face dead still, but her eyes were fixed on me, followed me, like a painting in a haunted house. And then she smiled at me, one of her barely-there lip curves, the meaning as foreign to me as Greek. I’d shivered, even though it was over 90 that afternoon, and walked on by. 

But I wasn’t going to tell Mac that. I told him only congratulations and that I missed him. 

And I’ve hated French women ever since. I flinch at a French accent spoken in a husky feminine voice. I want to tear their sleek pictures out of fashion magazines and cut them to confetti with my carving knives. I broke Celeste’s Edith Piaf Cds in halves and quarters and eighths and buried them in the trash compactor. 

For the first time since I let them go that previous spring, I allowed the sharp loneliness of missing Mari and Mac to cut deep into me. I began a piece that would reflect that feeling (in my mind) in clay and copper and silver aluminum—shiny and sharp and subtle and hard and heavy, with the ability to shatter at a hard enough blow (as I later found out). 

It took me three days, but I worked 18 or more hours a day at least, earning chapped and roughened hands from wet clay, cut to hell and always bleeding from the razor edges of thin copper wire and aluminum sheeting, stinging from the glazes and paints that worked into the torn and cracked skin. 

“Shit Munroe. How the hell are you going to catch a ball with those things? They look like slabs of raw meat.” 

Finished, I had two figures twined together—where does one start and the other begin? Darkness and light, silver and gold, slim and fluid and whether they were women or men—you couldn’t tell by looking and I didn’t remember quite what I’d intended—they were totally absorbed in one another. There was space between them, but not enough. Finally finished—fired, painted, the last pieces in place—I stared at it standing almost defiantly on my kitchen table, and tried to fit my hand between the two figures. Their thin chests didn’t touch, but no matter which angle I went at it there wasn’t enough space between them to grip one figure or the other. 

April walked unsteadily into the kitchen. She’d been seeing my housemate for a couple weeks by then, and if anything felt more at home in the house than when she and I had been together. Actually, at first, I mistook her for one of the other girls who had the run of the house. There was no difference now, her skin bared and jeans tight, her face painted and hair sleek and styled. 

“What do you think?” I asked her, one artist to another, gazing wearily on my creation. 

“You bastard,” she said. 

Startled, I actually looked at her. She wasn’t at all steady on her feet, swaying a few feet from me, gripping a chair’s back for support. 

“I saw you last night,” she said. 

The words she nearly spat, cool moisture in a fine vapor coating my cheek, scented 80-proof and burning like it. 

The night before I’d taken a rest from my work while certain parts dried and set, and attended a gallery opening with John McGee and his friend Paulo—not anything unusual, Paulo was addicted to that sort of thing and usually managed to drag either McGee or me or both of us along. Paulo was insecure in a crowd—a tiny man, he could have been afraid of being stepped on—but felt safer, could indulge in his childish excitement, if gripping tight to the hand of a friend. McGee’s did fine but Paulo preferred mine, probably because I was bigger. He sometimes playfully called me his bodyguard. 

Advancing on me, April nearly tripped. I gripped her shoulders to stop her fall. 

“Don’t touch me you faggot,” she said, terribly precise with lips and tongue and teeth. “How dare you have ever touched me with such filth on your hands?” 

April always had a tendency towards drama when she’d been drinking, and from the way her eyes shifted and her muscles twitched I thought it might have been more than drinking. 

Her eyes rested on my creation, rising roughly two and a half feet from the table top. “How disgusting,” she sneered. “God how perverted. Little boys—“ 

Her face went a bit gray then, and her body heaved, and she leaned over the floor and retched, so I couldn’t correct her mistake. Then I was too busy holding her hair back from her face. I handed her a damp was cloth but she smacked my hand and its offering away. “I said don’t touch me!” 

And then—well, I’ve never seen a person that drunk move that fast or abruptly. With both hands she picked up my rendition of Mac and Mari by an ankle each and swung it hard at me. 

I suppose it was only just. 

But whether I actually deserved a broken arm, for some reason I’d felt like I did. And April saved me the trouble of quitting the team, like I’d been talking about to Mac the previous spring. I kept telling myself things like “No one likes a quitter” and, well, as motivational as that sounds, I used it more to strike fear in my own heart. I would not be a well-loved guy if I quit the team just before my senior year, just as I was starting to get pretty good. Thanks to April, it wasn’t my fault I had to quit. I was made much fun of, of course, for having got my ass kicked by a girl. But I guess it was worth it. 

And by that point, what the guys thought of me was the last thing on my mind—well, not in that way at least. April had thrown me a lot to think about. For instance, was I who I appeared to be—and if I wasn’t, was it right to look and act like I did? I was technically halfway to a faggot, so should I dress and act that way? Was it necessary, ethically, to display who and what I was like a banner? 

I didn’t have any answers. I didn’t even know what I would display if I should let it all out front. 

Before that, every time I’d been thrown off kilter, every missed step and stumble, I’d drop into the same pattern, that of the drinking and whoring, that of the hazy days that fed streamlined identical one after another because I’d shut emotion off and let the essence that was most of Matt creep back and cower in a secluded corner of my mind—who ever or whatever Matt might turn out to be anyway. 

This time I didn’t. I resisted those urges and left all those things alone. Yet as much as I tried to keep myself from it, nudge myself out from that way-back in my head spot, I couldn’t help withdrawing. My awareness was sporadic at best. 

It was an endless autumn—without football to eat up my time, without the endless racket and life of the frat house (they pretty much left me alone that year—by what consensus I couldn’t say, maybe the brothers I was living with spread the word that Matty Munroe had gotten mighty strange these days, but with the rep I’d—so recently learned—I’d built they were afraid maybe to kick me out…any other guy they’d have probably had a good long “what the fuck?” sort of talk with, and it took their silence for me to realize that despite outward appearance I’d never really grown close to any of them)—without all that classes weren’t enough to fill the time alone. Academics without the college-life garnish were almost laughably easy. 

As a result, I spent a lot of time wandering the campus and the district as a whole, wandering Wallingford, sitting solitary on gray days near the Wallingford Steps with a hunk of wood and a knife— 

It seems strange, to carve a tree from a tree, but the challenge stimulated, as well as left me with excuses to shut away other parts of life for a while, caught up in the intricacy of rendering the tiniest details without whittling them away all together, taking something so large you can barely see the top of it if you stand beneath craning your neck skyward, something too large for you to wrap your arms around entirely so your fingertips won’t even touch no matter how far you stretch, and cutting it down to a size you can hold in the palm of your hand. 

In October April apologized to me—oh, not for busting my arm, or even for shattering a piece of artwork that was valuable to me, but for assuming I was gay. 

“I never even gave you a chance to explain yourself,” she said. “I mean, you were just holding a guy’s hand. For all I knew he could have been blind and you were just helping him out.” She paused, waiting for me to say something (anything?), and then—“Well, all I can say is that I was drunk, and I know that’s no excuse. I’m sorry.” 

I thanked her for her apology and walked away. I probably could have been more gracious, but she was on the verge of being dumped by my roommate and I was just cynical enough at that point to think she was grasping at straws. 

I realized that wasn’t the first time I hadn’t explained myself to her. Even in that first conversation we had, I’d only batted away her first assumptions, allowing her to create and take on others about me. I don’t think I ever even once mentioned my non-UW friends to her (i.e. Mari and Mac), never came close to breaching the subject of my mothers. 

It was curious, the feeling of knowing finally that as much as I’d known about April—and I did know her as well as a person can know anyone (well, almost anyone), and that’s a fact because she told me so once—I’d never let her know me. Outwardly, I was the injured party in our broken relationship (and in more ways than one). Anyone else looking at the superficials of the situation would see that she’d used me—as experience, as a social contact and ladder, whatever. I had myself been nursing wounds I thought were caused from that (and not just from a 40-pound sculpture slamming against my arm with a surprising amount of force). Really though, I’d used her as much as she’d used me—as a quick bandage for other, older, internal wounds, as comfort something like an electric blanket would bring, as a distracting toy. 

Oddly, that knowledge was gratifying. 

* * * 

I barely noticed the advent and conclusion of final exams that quarter, but got through them easily enough according to my transcripts. December was cold as a bitch that year, and the holiday lights—even the garishly colored and blinking ones—did nothing to warm me, but instead stood out as bright indistinct blurs in my vision, almost hurting my eyes even with the minimal wattage of the tiny bulbs. My t-shirts hung a little looser on my shoulders and with my hat low over my eyes and my hands deep in my pockets it seemed I was always walking into the wind. The wind was cold and it stung my cheeks and ears. 

And then at 10 a.m. on Christmas Eve—I remember the time because I was wrapping presents in the living room with the house strangely quiet around me, deserted for winter break, and I looked at the clock to calculate what time I would roll into my moms’ driveway. It was dark as twilight, and pouring rain down in sweeping hard gusts of wind that rattled the windows and doors. 

And then there was a knock that was louder than the weather made against the old house, the knock of a human fist on hard wood. 

When I warily opened the door, a long lean figure bundled in black fell against me. It was of a height where the silky hair on the top of its head just tickled my mouth and nose, and instinctively I wrapped my arms around it, breathing in the smells of French cigarettes and musky soap. 

“Hey,” he said, raising his face finally from where it had been buried in my neck, looking up at me. “Am I home in time to catch a ride for Christmas dinner?” 

How many old movies does someone have to watch to get that kind of timing? Over his shoulder through the still-open doorway I could see a yellow taxi pulling away from the curb, a set of bags behind him on the step. 

Still dazed I looked down at him, brushing some rain away that dripped from his hair onto his cheeks and nose. He kissed me quick on the cheek—I told myself he was just being European—and turned around to begin bringing in his bags. “This is ok, right? Matt?” 

“Uh, yeah.” I shook my head, snapping myself into focus, and managed to grab a couple of his bags for him. “Hell yeah. God it’s good to see you. You just decided to come home for Christmas or something?” 

“For good. I’m done with fucking France for a while,” he said, shrugging out of his baggy black trench coat, scattering raindrops everywhere. I didn’t care. “I told them I’d stay till the end of January after things went busted with Eugenie, but I finally couldn’t take it anymore—so close to Christmas and so far away from home. So I got on the first flight outta that shit hole and…” he shrugged. “Here I am.” 

“The girl? Things went, um…‘busted?’” I wanted to reach out for him so I pushed my hands down into my pockets. When? You never said anything about it.” 

He shrugged again. “I don’t really…” at a loss for words he blew a gust of breath upwards, displacing the hair that hung in his eyes, shrugged again. “Maybe after Christmas we’ll tell each other stories. Right now I’m just glad to be here, happy to see you…” He slung an arm over my shoulders and rested his head on my shoulder a moment, surveying the mess of bright paper and ribbons and boxes on the floor. “We are going to see the mommies, right?” 

“Yeah, as soon as I pack a bag, unless there’s something else you need to do before we skip town. We, uh, already sent your presents to France.” 

“I know. When I got them that’s when I knew I had to come home. So I brought them with me, all wrapped up still.” He grinned. “So I made you waste postage, but I can cook for you now, so it’s not so bad, see?” 

I squeezed him in a sort of half hug as reply, leaving unsaid that if I’d known it was possible to get him home, I’d have paid a whole lot more than the price of a package airmailed overseas to have him back. 

Mom and Celeste were almost as happy to have Mac home as I’d been, and not just because he could make the tofurkey taste a lot better than Mom could. 

No one mentioned Mari’s absence, although Celeste hugged Mac and me—tiny woman somehow managed to gather us both in her arms at once—when she caught us staring (caught like a pair of deer in a set of glaringly bright headlights?) at my mom’s favorite picture. 

She keeps it in the kitchen, above the table we used to cover with newspaper before gathering around it to clean and oil our guns on so many past Saturdays. In the picture we’re standing out back by the fence that encloses the pasture. Mac’s got the old familiar Browning automatic in hand, pointed carelessly at the ground, smiling straight at the camera. His left hand is a pale blur, caught in mid-motion, as always. Mari’s at his left side, pointing the big ugly 12-guage at the camera and smirking. I’m at Mari’s left, looking over at her like I’m about to say something, for some reason clutching a bowie knife. The sky behind us is the pale winter color of an old man’s eyes, the knee-length grass spreading around and behind us in an unnaturally bright and green sea. 

“That was so long ago. I think I was only 14,” Mac finally said, breaking our silence. 

“Doesn’t seem like it, huh?” I said, ruffling his hair. 

He smacked my hand away and went to check the stove.


	5. Chapter 5

I guess, when you think about it, life is full of perfect-timing movie moments like that. That's what I was getting at in the beginning, those moments that seem so happy ever after that the screen play of your life could just end, right then. There I was, Christmastime, the worst time of the year to be so bone-deep depressed, all torn up over April and life in general, trying to push away the idea that the whole root of the problem really was Mac, when suddenly, there he was, in real life, proclaiming the French bitch was done for and he was home for good. Seriously, if I'd died that day, it would have been with no regrets. 

Usually, though, life tends to go on. 

Mac came back with me to the house in Wallingford on the 26th, where we'd stay until we found our own place. He'd talked me into moving out of the house I shared with the two guys from my frat and into an apartment with him. Against my better judgment, I agreed. Actually, I had trouble saying no to him about anything for a while. From the moment he'd hurled himself into my arms Christmas Eve morning, it was like I'd been struck stupid, completely unable to comprehend the reality of his presence. And that stupidity lingered, as he ran circles around me, finding a new job, finding us an apartment, packing my things, taking my truck down to Onalaska to get the few things he'd left ~ mostly boxes of kitchen stuff and his kitchen table and chairs, which he hadn't wanted to sell before he went away ~ from my moms' garage. He took care of everything for once, in a strange sort of role reversal. I didn't mind. I was content just to watch him, glad he was back, if glad is even the word for it. It was more like being relieved of the burden of his absence, soothed by the completeness of his presence. I wondered how, the year before, when he'd lived in the same city, I'd managed to stay away. 

The only thing I had to do was figure out how to get myself out of my living situation. As it turned out though, my house mates were only too glad to let me out of the lease on our house. I asked the fraternity if I could be allowed an inactive status, because my (totally bogus) psychologist had diagnosed me as having had a nervous breakdown and recommended I disassociate myself with fraternity life for a while. That way, I was still eligible to attend parties (even though I never did after that), but didn't have to pay dues or go to meetings or anything. The vote passed. I think they were happy to see the back of me, though they expressed sympathy and (probably totally bogus) wishes for speedy recovery. The whole fallacy was kind of believable at that, perhaps closer to the truth than I gave it credit for. 

And then, once settled in our new place, I found the initial relief of Mac's presence all too fleeting. Remember that twitchiness I talked about, back during my senior year of high school? Those long looks at my best friend that started the stirrings of curiosity, made me wonder if I might just be a little less straight than I thought? There was no question by that time I was anything but bisexual. But while in high school I'd mostly been able to push any sort of sexual attraction for Mac reasonably far back in my mind, any ability to restrain those less-than-pure thoughts was totally gone by then. I had a horrible, foreboding thought that living with him would finally force the truth from the figurative closet. 

It was the same routine, all the things I couldn't take my eyes away from: the way he would hold that shank of hair from his eyes when someone was talking to him, like pulling back a curtain to let the light in; the way his jaw moved as he clenched it and unclenched it (he'd always been one of those horrible teeth grinders); the way the muscles in his back would flex and release as he stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes. It wasn't just physical things this time either. If it had been just that, I might have had a hope for my sanity. Now, it wasn't only the outside of Mac that would set me off, it was the little ways that he was just, well, Mac, things I'd taken for granted before he went away again. Take, for instance, the shell of your typical punk rock boy. Now set him down next to a bum in a doorway, where they share a smoke and conversation. Or stick him in a soup kitchen before he goes to work or on his day off. You see the friendly smiles, the genuine interest in his eyes when most would turn their focus a little to the side or be impatient to get way. You don't see the $20 he slipped into the bum's pocket, or hear the way he greets each person in the soup line by name. He was always trying to take care of people, from strangers to my poor mothers with their awful vegan cooking, and for some reason, it wasn't till we were practically living on top of each other in our new little antique one bedroom that I saw he tended to try to look after me more than anyone. It was heartwarming as much as it was bewildering and exasperating. 

And then there was the way he was constantly cleaning up after me: putting away clothes, wiping up paint, stacking books and papers. Our Mac's always been kind of a neat freak. He verges on the edge of obsessive compulsive (“A place for everything and everything in its place,” and he actually says that, strange as it is coming from that ring-pierced mouth but I guess we've all got our quirks). It was something I hadn't considered when we first moved in together, but it started to drive me nuts, to the point we had to section off a corner of the living room as “Matty's corner,” where Mac wasn't allowed to pick up a goddamn thing. Even two weeks into moving in, I started to whine about needing a bigger place if we were going to room together, but Mac wanted to stay in the U District until I finished school in June, even though he was working at a restaurant in Belltown. 

“You don't need the extra commuting stress, and I can take it,” he said. “It's like you're cracking up Matty ~ what the hell are you doing to yourself anyway? You gotta eat more, or something. Why don't you go to the gym anymore? Your clothes are like, falling off.” 

It was true. Without working out really since I'd broken my arm, and really not paying much attention to myself otherwise, I'd gotten fairly thin and out of shape. I had what seemed like a perpetual cold, and had taken to smoking like a fiend. Mac tried to feed me up, but even with his kitchen skills nothing really had any taste. Those were the times I wished we had a dog, a hungry, mongrel dog, to sneak food to so I wouldn't have to see the look on his face when I only finished half of something, or less. Sad puppy dog looks, like those of the dog I wished I had, will rip a hole in you, so that you either instinctively plug it up and build yourself a barricade against further breaches in the hull, or you simply surrender to invading forces, your ship sinking in the storm. I wasn't ready to give up yet, but as much as I tried to stave off emotion, any emotion, I was unable to keep him out.

It was almost kind of dull panic, realizing I was losing the battle, that I wouldn't be able to keep him as a friend for much longer, a slow steady throb of an idea that consistently pushed its way into everyday thought, that maybe Mac was made for me. I could see him sliding and fitting into my life as tightly and smoothly and seamlessly as the lids on the puzzle boxes I sometimes carve. And that scared the hell out of me, because I knew, eventually, we'd have to part ways, like all friends and roommates eventually do. We were in stasis, or like a carefully balanced playground teeter-totter, and I dreaded the day the way we were just then would end, and it was eating at me, eroding at my peace of mind as much as the way I knew I wanted more. And he knew something was wrong, it showed in the way he fussed over me constantly, but there was no way I could tell him about it. 

Because how do you say as much to a boy? Put on his slim shoulders that heavy sway between desire and dread, tell him that's the way it is with you, especially when you know there's not a damn thing he can do to ease the load, because while he's your best friend, he's still the reason for your impending insanity? As far as I could tell, by that January of 2003, he was barely a month away from what I'd got the impression was a bad breakup with a French bitch. We hadn't ever actually gotten around to discussing it at that point, but if it hadn't been painful, why would he have come rushing home like that just before Christmas? 

As far as dating was concerned, Mac was just about my total opposite. No matter how long a relationship lasted, be it a couple months or a year, it was never casual, and I'd never known him to have a one-night stand. And since his first girlfriend in seventh grade, I'd never known him to not be in a relationship at some point, whether it be just beginning one, in the thick of one, or just coming out of one. He'd gone through phases, being that he'd dated girls for a few years, then switched to guys for a couple, then, with the advent of Mari and the French one, had apparently switched to girls again, he didn't just accept whatever came around, like I did. But after his split with what's-her-name, for the first time in years, he didn't seem to be looking for anyone, and when we were out and about together, grocery shopping or going out to eat or just whatever, he ignored all the looks and come-ons he got (and being Mac, he got his fair share). He was remote too, like that teeter-totter balancing act was beginning to wear on both of us, though his remoteness wasn't expressed in the same way mine was. With me, it was like my head had got itself stuck in a thick fog I couldn't duck out of. Mac, on the other hand, his distance was like he was always on the verge of saying something and then deciding against it, holding back at the last minute. Instead, he puttered around the apartment doing petty little chores or fooling around in the kitchen. 

Despite everything, I loved that apartment. It's like when I first moved out of my moms' house to go to college, I was plucked out of home and plunked down in some alien land, and every place I've been since then has been one leg further on the journey back to home. That apartment was close: the worn wood floors and windows that looked down into a gray winter street, the ugly plaid armchair Mac and I had picked up at some second hand store, and the bedroom with our two beds pressed up against opposite walls and my dirty clothes and schoolbooks left perversely in the aisle between them because it drove Mac crazy. 

It was there one night at the end of January he finally blurted it out, I think, at least part of what was always on the tip of his tongue, though then I couldn't figure out what all of it meant. 

It was late and I'd gone to bed early, dosed with sleeping pills, like I often did that winter, the darkness of the dead side of the year seeming to leach vitality from me like a parasite. I woke up hours later, according to the slime-green numbers of the alarm clock, to the soft sound of Mac crying in the bed across from mine. And if any time's a time for crying, it's the 3 a.m.s of our lives, that middle hour, that Wednesday hump of the night, which if you're still awake at you know you're fucked for any kind of good sleep, and if you wake up at it, it's the loneliest kind of hour you can spend, wakeful and staring. At that, I thought of leaving Mac to the lonely sound of squeezing out salt tears, but frankly, Mac cries like a girl, in fits and starts and hiccups, and that's the least of the reasons it bothers me to hear it. So I sat up in bed, and by the pale yellow streetlight shining through the naked window I could see only the back of his head, his face buried in the pillow. 

“Hey Mac? Mac, you awake?”

The sobs ~ or more whimpering, really ~ stopped with a sort of strangled gulp, and he turned his face towards me, his eyes black glittering holes in a pale face looking at me through the shadows. “I'm ok. Go back to sleep.”

“Hey, no,” I said, throwing back my covers to cross the room and sit on the edge of his bed. I brushed the hair away from his eyes, but drew my hand away pretty quickly. Even as soon as the week before I'd been able to manage pushing aside my feelings enough to ruffle his hair or rest a hand on his shoulder in a sort of parody of the almost brotherly affection I'd had for him in the past, but it had gotten to the point I could hardly pretend my feelings away. It was a bad idea to touch him. 

“Bad dream,” I asked, “or just missing...her?” It was with some hesitation I referred to the French bitch. We'd mostly tip-toed around the subject until then. 

He rolled onto his back, propped up on his pillows, looking at the ceiling rather than my face. I heard him breathe in deep. “No,” he said after several quiet moments. “No, I never missed Eugenie. I broke it off with Eugenie.” 

“Oh.” I chewed on that information a while. His statement hung in the air as if it were unfinished, but he was holding back for some reason. I couldn't make much of it either way, still bleary with the aftermath of trazodone. 

He rolled back onto his side with a rustle of sheets and blankets, propping his head on his hand to look at me. “I never did tell you why I came back, not really, did I?”

I thought about that, and said, “Well, you got your presents and you missed us.”

“No. I missed you, Matt.”

“Me?” I caught the emphasis on “you,” meaning me, yes, but it's hardly something a person will let much weight rest on, in the purposeful denseness of hopes we will, at times, refuse to acknowledge in the fear of being let down. 

“Yeah. In your emails you sounded so fucking unhappy. And your present to me. Like I said, I left most of them wrapped before I flew home, to save to open with you and the mommies. But I unwrapped the little tree you carved. It was such a Matty tree, y'know? All strong looking but you know it hadta be a bitch to make, you had to have been so delicate with it, almost more careful than you need to be with a really, really light pastry. Anyway, that was all I could take, just holding that tree in my hands. So I came home.” He took a deep breath, blew it out. I watched his face, his black eyes darting around the room, lighting on everything but my face, his right hand plucking at the threads of a blanket, tendons flexing under the smooth tanned skin on the back of it. There was more, I knew, and I waited for it. 

“And then I get here,” he said, and it sounded as if he were speaking through clenched teeth, “and it's like you're falling apart, and I can't put any of the pieces together. You're not here anymore Matty. Your head's off in lala land or something, and no matter what I do, no matter how much I hang around, I can't get you to snap out of it, to come back.” 

I winced, opened my mouth to say something, but he kept on. 

“And I'm ~ I've got stuff to talk about with you but I'm afraid to, 'cause maybe you'll just break apart even more.”

I couldn't look at him then. I wanted to defend myself ~ scream, shout, ~ one more time say there was nothing wrong with me, but there was guilt chewing on me too, because he'd just said, more or less, I was the reason for his unsettled silence since he'd come home. And I couldn't tell him the real reason for any of it, the first part being not even tangible to me, just a general off-ness, and the second being that maybe if I were just able to lay down, right there in bed beside him, not even touch him, but just be that much closer, I might be able to sleep without a fucking pill. 

“Matty, why won't you tell me what's wrong?”

I sighed, and the sound of it was heavy. Scooting back over his outstretched legs to lean my back against the wall, I stared out the window opposite me, examining the building across the street with superfluous concentration. I almost decided to blurt out, “I think I'm in love with you, ok?” and just end it there, but not only would that be the epitome of every unbelievable love scene in any sappy chick movie you'll ever see, it would probably freak the hell out of him, if he didn't laugh because he thought it was a joke. 

But then his hand gripped my knee, was holding tight. Now he looks at me, I thought. And he said, “Was it April?” 

“Wha ~?” The girl was so far from my mind at that point, I actually started counting back months in my head, until I realized what he meant. 

“Oh ~ no! ...though,” and realized just as I said so it was true, more or less, “it was actually more something she said.”

Something warm and soft had crept towards my fingers, and I jumped till I realized it was Mac's hand, which grabbed tight to mine, and which made me feel uncomfortable, not because I disliked it, or because it was uncomfortable in and of itself, but because I felt like a fake, a poser, for grabbing on tight to a hand held out in friendship, when I wanted it to be more. 

“So?” The sheets rustled as he shifted. His eyelashes cast fan-shaped shadows on his cheeks, like a bizarre film noir exaggeration. I thought it was a strange thing to notice, and then everything slowed in proportion to my racing pulse and I swear I heard the steady drip, drip, drip of the leaky kitchen faucet clear across the apartment, synchronizing with my pounding heart, like footsteps moving closer. 

I jumped up and off the bed, the giving into the usual first instinct of flight at the start of a full blown panic attack, only to be stopped short at the end of my tether. Mac's hand still gripping mine pulled me with a teeth-crashing jolt back down to the bed. The springs squeaked as I bounced there a moment. 

“Siddown, asshole, no one leaves till we hash this shit out,” he said. 

And this was the core of it all, the center of the funks and the mopes and that great fucking weight pressing down on my chest. And I couldn't lay it all on him. What to say though? 

“I need a cigarette.”

He handed me one from the nightstand with a lighter and his water glass to use as an ash tray. So much for that out. Mac usually hated smoking in the bedroom but apparently I wasn't budging from his sight for any reason. 

“So?” he pressed. “What'd she say?” It was almost a challenge, like he knew underneath it was all really just double talk.

I lighted the cigarette, buying time in the ritual of a long, involved initial inhale and exhale. Expelling, finally, the last bit of smoke from my lungs, I said, “Well, you remember ~ I think I told you this ~ how April and I met?” I'd walked him through that first meeting, in an email just after the fact, expounding at length upon the audacity of April thinking I was just another idiot frat boy jock. “Well, I've been thinking. I think she was right, you know?”

Mac's expression displayed no comprehension. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ok, look.” I ticked off the counts against me on my fingers as I listed them. “I hang out with jock frat boys, I apparently dress like one, and don't act differently enough from one to really tell the difference at a casual impression.”

“So?” Mac was stubbornly refusing to see my point, and though it was a warm feeling, that he ignored my faults and flaws with the blind eye of a best friend, I had to make him see. He did ask, after all. And, grasping at straws, I figured maybe this really was the underlying reason for my funk, and the Mac thing was just some weird side effect. 

“The point is, that's either deception, if underneath I'm not really just another jock frat boy, which I think is deplorable. But more likely, I've just been kidding myself all along, and that really is who I am, because I never thought to even craft an image or whatever, right? Right, so, that IS who I am, and if I try to pretend to myself like I'm something more, like an artist, or whatever, It's just posing...trying to be...” I was really getting into it then, really believing what I was saying. 

Mac steered my hand back over the glass as my cigarette, neglected and burnt down through my tirade, was about to shed ash everywhere. “You're losin' it Matty. The point.”

“The point is, I don't want to be like those guys people lump me in with. Have you ever spent time at a frat party? They're morons. But I am like them. If you went to one of those functions you wouldn't be able to pick me out of the inebriated, sex-crazed assemblage.”

“Until you open your mouth, and out come those four-syllable words, and you're worse when you're drunk, Webster.”

“Shut up. I'm talking.” I looked at my spent cigarette and sucked another drag from it, tasting filter. “But Mom and Celeste,” I continued, on a roll, “always taught me it was a heinous thing for a person to try to be what he's not. And if I'm that ~ the guy in the helmet and jersey, the guy with the bong in one hand, a fifth in the other, and two girls in the bedroom, how can I be the guy who likes to paint and sculpt, who likes dating guys sometimes too? And how can those two guys be the same as the guy on the Dean's list who wants to be an accountant and who really just wants to stay home on Saturday night in his underwear and read a book?”

I knew what I wanted him to say. I wanted him to tell me I was who I wanted to be, that the athletic outside and jackass activities meant nothing (even if they were a good time), that I was just misunderstood, maybe that I underestimated myself. 

Mac's jaw slowly dropped, his eyebrows rose toward his hairline in sync with it. 

“That's what's been eating you?”

I nodded, up and down. He shook his head, side to side, the cheekbone-length hair in front flapping against his ears. 

“You gotta be kidding me.” He sat up, the covers falling down around his waist. 

“What? No.” I'd forgotten, in the heat of my rant, that the whole thing was just a cover up, and by then wholly believed everything I'd said. 

“Swear to god?”

“Yeah.”

“Matty Munroe, get the fuck over yourself! I mean, with the way you're wasting away, I thought you had to be hiding like, a terminal illness, or at least worrying about the existence of god or, or lovesick or something! But no, Matt Munroe doesn't give a shit about any of that, he's killing himself ~ fucking literally! ~ over his fucking image!” He yanked away the ash and water filled glass, cigarette butt bobbing at the waterline like a buoy, and with his free hand grabbed hold of me and yanked me off his bed with surprising force, sending me sprawling across the room. 

Mac isn't often angry. Regardless of his crappy childhood, or maybe because of it, he's a pretty laid-back, non-confrontational soul. But when he's got a bug up his ass, I duck and cover. I didn't have a chance just then. He tackled me before I could blink, giving me no opportunity to run, like he probably knew I would have, pinning me on my back to the floor by straddling me and holding my wrists to the ground with both hands. He had me pinned pretty good. Mac's more substantial than he looks. He's slender, but it's all a layer of hard muscle on that slim frame, and small-boned as he is you don't realize it until you're standing right next to him that he's just a hair shy of six foot. 

I don't think he realized he'd jumped me till he was actually on top of me though, looking me in the face, a kind of surprised expression pasted on his own. After a minute though he remembered he was supposed to be scowling at me, and said, “Please tell me that was all bullshit Matty.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. He looked incredibly...cute, just then, and sort of, well, sexy. And it didn't help that he was sitting right on top of me. In a moment, I knew both of us were going to be pretty uncomfortable, and not just because we were wrestling on a hardwood floor. I struggled against his hold, but it got me nowhere, and only made my situation worse. “Get off please,” I said through clenched teeth, but the little bitch just sat there, while I started to panic. 

“Get OFF,” I said again, trying to break his hold. Even a few months ago, I would have been able to, but he just shifted on top of me, opened his mouth, like he was about to say something, but in shifting, had encountered, I think, the reason for my desperation to get away. I saw comprehension slowly morph his expression to a different sort of surprise, and he jumped up like he'd just noticed he was sitting on a bomb. I scrambled to my feet and we stood there, looking at each other, looking each other in the eyes, really, and I got the odd impression Mac looked sort of smug just then. Managing to break my gaze, I tried to shrug it off, pulled on the first pair of jeans I found on the floor, jammed my feet into shoes. 

“Yeah, you noticed that? That's also kind of a problem,” I spat, slamming my way out of the room, and then out of the apartment after grabbing my coat and my bag from the bench by the door, where Mac invariably placed them after I'd dropped them on the floor. I walked the few blocks to IHOP, ordered a plate of food I didn't eat and finished off a pot of coffee and a pack of Marlboro Reds while reading Camus, stayed there till my 8:30 a.m. class. 

I was slinking around like a kicked dog though, that day, because I knew Mac was right. By worrying about being, basically, an idiot, I was rendering myself idiotic. And by giving Mac only a fraction of the reason I was “falling apart,” as he so aptly put it, I'd then made myself a fool by pointing out to him with a glaring red arrow the real, more substantial reason for my hang-ups, i.e. my body's traitorous display and my verbal confirmation of that fact. And at that, I knew I couldn't go on living with him. It wasn't fair to him, and even if I stopped thinking so much about myself as Mac suggested, I knew I wouldn't have a chance of shaking my black cloud, especially since I'd laid it all out on the table, however accidentally. 

When I finally slunk home, stringing out the inevitable as far as I could by employing such stalling tactics as doing as much homework as possible in the library, being friendly and saying hello to everyone I knew and thereby subjecting myself to the torture of pointless conversation, browsing the University Bookstore for two hours before finally purchasing a book I'd already read, and forcing down a cardboard-like meal I bought at the Hub ~ by the time I staggered into my darkened apartment, truly tired for once, not just the pseudo exhaustion of the depressed, it was 7:49 p.m. by the numbers on the microwave's digital clock. Mac should have been at work, and I'd made sure he would be, checking from the street to be sure the windows were dark. Instead, he was sitting in the dark on the ugly plaid chair, his legs swung over the arm of it, channel surfing. The TV cast a faint blue glow over him, highlighting an expressionless face as smooth as polished wood, and he waited several minutes to look up at me after I walked through the door. I expected him to say something, spout some accusation, express some concern, but his lips stayed pressed together, and once he made sure it was me he turned back to the TV. 

The reputation for playing the waiting game is most often laid at the feet of women, but guys do it too: after some confrontation, awkward moment or the like, two or more parties fall into silence, waiting for the other to say something first, whether apology or just breaking through a layer of ice. 

I wasn't going to cave. Mac has always been a weakling when it comes to this game. 

Sure enough, I'd stripped to shorts and a tee shirt, brushed my teeth, and was about to pop some pills to help topple me into the sleep of the oblivious, when Mac appeared in the bathroom doorway, leaning awkwardly against the frame. He looked exhausted and I felt bad. I caved. 

I said, “I'm sorry.”

“Thanks.” He paused, then, “I'm sorry too.”

“For what?” I set the pills down on the counter. “I was the one who stormed out of here like a five year old having a tantrum.”

Mac shifted, ran a hand through his hair, let out the start of a chuckle that turned into a sigh. “Maybe I was a little harsh, all right? I mean, there was no reason to throw you on the ground like that. I was just so fucking frustrated, you know? 'Cause I can't help you.” He crossed his arms at his chest and looked at me, wearing a Mari sort of smile, and by that, I mean the sort that's hard to interpret. Was it rueful, fond, amused, what?

“Help me with what?” I finally prodded. 

His eyebrows crinkled towards the center of his forehead. “With what's bugging you. You know, what we talked about.”

“Oh.” Which thing was he referring to, I wondered, and was he going to ignore what had actually sent me storming out? Which wouldn't be cool, because then I'd have to bring it up when I told him I was moving out. On the other hand, if he was referring to the second subject ~ being the thing that had come up (literally) after he'd tackled me to the ground... My stomach dropped, like I was on an old elevator. If he was referring to that, he didn't have to be so goddamned nonchalant about it. 

“I mean, I can't tell you who you are,” he amended. 

Oh. First subject. Then I'd still have to bring up the second subject. My stomach clenched, wondering why he was avoiding it. My identity crisis almost seemed trivial after that, didn't it? 

“But I don't see why it matters,” Mac continued on, oblivious to what must have been a pretty sour look on my face. “I mean, why can't you just go on doing what you were doing, you know, being what you were being? Why do you even have to think about it? It doesn't matter to anyone who really, really knows you. It doesn't ~ I mean, I love you, no matter what. You know that, right?”

There was my opening. Time to bite the goddamn bullet. If I was going to have to bring it up anyway, force him to look at it, and I'd already come to that conclusion, I might as well do it now. I wanted to avoid it, buy myself more time with him, but knowing he knew already, was just avoiding the truth, playing along, would make it that much harder for both of us in the long run. I walked past him to the living room, in search of a comfortable setting ~ and for a place for Mac to sit down. I clicked off the TV, flicked on the overhead light, pointed at the chair, and he sat. 

“That's the real problem,” I began. 

“What is?” He looked up at me benignly. 

“You say you ~ you know, that you love me, no matter what.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you totally miss that little display last night? Are you really that dense? Because I've got a feeling you mean brotherly love when you say that and that's not where I'm coming from, not at all, obviously. That's what's eating at me more than anything else, and I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. So I'll just start packing my things now and ~”

“Matt!” Mac leaned back in the chair, actually relaxed. He raised one eyebrow ~ it struck me as a very precise movement just then. “Do you think I'd come all the way back from France just because I missed you like I missed a brother?”

I inhaled so sharply I nearly choked. “Yeah?” I whispered. I looked around for some place to sit, and settled on the edge of the coffee table, the closest thing. “Well yeah, I guess.”

He covered his face with his hands. The little shit was laughing. “You really are a fucking idiot.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Shit Mac, what the hell?” 

He sort of half stood, placing one hand on the coffee table beside me, and the other against my neck. And then his mouth was on mine, and he was kissing me, slowly, gently, and very very thoroughly, his thumb pressing on the pulse point just under my jaw. The only thing comparable to it in my experience, and I mean the strangeness of it, the unexpectedness, was my first kiss with John McGee, though it was so absolutely far from that. The comparison point is the shock, and the way every thought went right out of my head, and I was all reaction. As for the rest, well, kissing McGee was an experience. Kissing Mac was...right. It was like that puzzle box I was talking about. The pieces fit seamlessly. 

He broke away first, rested his forehead against mine for a moment before sitting back in the armchair. “So Matty,” he said. He sounded as breathless as I felt, his voice had a rasp to it. “Was that brotherly?” 

I couldn't answer. I was still working on getting enough oxygen to think. 

And then he smirked. 

I was immediately, unreasonably, pissed off. Bracing myself against the coffee table to push myself standing on my still-weak legs, I growled. “Are you fucking with me Mac? I swear to god ~” 

He had the grace to wipe the smirk off his face, replace it with dismay. “No no no!” Grabbing my wrist in both hands, he stood, but the jerk of that motion was too much for my unsteady balance, and I stumbled, knocking both of us back into the chair in an awkward, tangled mess. 

I was half on top of him, legs dangling off the chair and one hand gripping the back of it where I'd tried to break my fall, but his hands still gripped my left wrist, and when I tried to scramble up he pulled me back down. He pressed his face against the side of my neck, and then kissed it. “I'm not fucking with you,” he said, his voice low and hot against my skin. I froze. My heart was about to pump blood right out of my eardrums it was pounding that hard, and I couldn't breathe. Shaking my arm from his grip, I finally manged to push back off the chair, back off him, staggered a few steps away, reeling. It was like a head rush, only worse; my vision started to go black at the edges and the blood that had threatened to pound out my ears a moment before dropped out of my head and into my hands and feet, which immediately went hot and tingly. I still couldn't get enough air. 

“Shit Matty,” he was saying. He faced me, anxious, his hands on my shoulders propping me up, and oddly, when he steadied me, it was easier to breathe, even though he'd caused my out of control panic in the first place. “I didn't get it wrong, right?” he said. “That IS what this was about, right?”

I shook my head, then realized that looked like a “no,” so I said yes, and then forgot the exact wording of the question, and just hung my head. He kept looking at me, perplexed, like someone who'd reached up to field a fly ball and opened his glove to reveal a purple chicken. 

“Matty, we need to talk.”

This time I knew I was shaking my head no. I mean, I couldn't explain my reaction either. I'd been trying to shove daydreams of moments like the one I'd just experienced out of my head for weeks, and having finally lived it, I completely fucking lost it. Maybe it was too soon, more likely it was because Mac's reaction to my confession, and his own declaration, had come from so far out of left field ~ I never saw it coming, the ball just hit me between the eyes and knocked me stupid, my own purple chicken. 

So I shrugged him off, said, “I need some air. I'm going outside,” headed for the door. He grabbed the back of my tee shirt and I turned on him. He glared at me from under his hair, opened his mouth then snapped it shut, taking a step back.

“Dude, did you not just see me almost pass out?” I snapped. “I need some fucking air. It's like a sauna in here.”

“Yeah, but ya might want some pants,” he retorted. “And maybe shoes?”

I flushed and headed for the bedroom, and he followed, muttering, “We are so not done yet.”

It wasn't that I didn't agree. I was completely confused, and only Mac could answer the questions whirling in my head. I just wished he'd give me a little space to get my feet first, but when I pulled on jeans and shoes and a sweatshirt and jacket, he did the same. He moved abruptly as he dressed, almost with jerks, very un-Mac-like, and his shoulders and neck were held stiffly, I saw, as I followed him out the door. I started to feel a little guilty. He was probably just as off-balance as I was. I'd given him a sign, he moved in, and I took it back. He said nothing though, and the only sounds were the stomp of feet on hardwood stairs, the jingle of our keys, and then we burst into the winter air, breath clouding around our heads.

“Shit, it's cold. Happy now?” The glare hadn't budged from his face, and he shivered visibly, bundled as he was in a black wool pea coat and yards of red scarf. 

I leaned against the building's brick side, lighted a cigarette. “Ok. You can talk now.”

“Gee, thanks Matty.” He jammed his hands in his coat pockets, still looking at me through his glare, then tensed, like a cat does when it's about to spring, and I thought for a sec he was going to jump me again, but he just shouted, “What the fuck WAS that?!”

“I ~ I don' ~”

“After weeks of shooting out these little signs, you finally tell me you have a thing for me, so I show you exactly how I feel about that and you freak right the fuck out! What's the fucking deal?” He gestured wildly as he spoke, and then, his vitriol exorcised, sort of melted to the sidewalk, squatting there, with his elbows resting on his knees and his face in his hands. I felt like a grade A asshole. 

“Mac,” I said, crouching down beside him, and he looked up, looked quickly away, his profile shadowed in the angle of the streetlight. The expression on his face revealed almost too much, like he'd stripped himself bare, and that much intimacy felt undeserved, with the way I'd acted. “I didn't expect you to feel the same way.”

I stood, sucked hard on my cigarette, let it out in a tired breath. “Hell, I don't even know that you feel the same way! Yeah, I mean, it was a fucking hot kiss, but ~” I faltered, leaned back against the building. He looked up at me again. “Was it just a kiss?” I was almost thinking out loud, I guess, voicing the protests my body had initially made for me before my head caught up. “I mean, shit. I'm not talking about just sex here. For eight years, you've been my best friend, and if we're going to go this route it had better be more than just fucking around, you ~”

He was laughing again, just a quiet chuckle, his forehead resting on his knees where he still crouched. 

“Goddamnit Mac!” I grabbed his hand and yanked him up, and he fell against me, an arm around my shoulder, his head resting on my collarbone, and I heard him say “Matty, Matty, Matty,” amusement still lacing his voice. I tensed, and he let go and backed off. 

“It's 'cause of me and Mari, isn't it?” he said, serious again. 

I looked down at the ground, not wanting him to see my face. He'd hit the bullseye. 

“Come on, let's walk.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me along the sidewalk, so that it took me a couple hurried steps before I caught up, my eyes fixed on his long, slim fingers laced through mine. He wasn't letting go, and after a moment, he squeezed gently, as if in assurance of this. 

“Look,” he said, facing straight ahead as he spoke, maybe giving me some time to get used to the hand holding thing before he invaded my space even more. “Ok, for starters, I get why you might think at first it's just about the sex, k? I should know you enough by now to know maybe even though I was getting all those signs from you, about how it's not just friends between us now, that maybe you weren't picking up on the same stuff from me, 'cause you've always been kinda dense about stuff like that.” 

“Hey!” 

He shook his head, and smiled a little. “Man, you totally are. Like, this isn't new for me, you know? I've been into you from the beginning, and you never noticed, not once.”

“From the beginning of what?” I laughed, relaxing a little. This was ok, I thought, I could do this much. Talking, holding hands, it was still a little scary, but again, scary because it felt right. I just had to get used to feeling right about something. “Mac, I met you when you were twelve.”

“For serious.” Now he grinned, and looked up at me, a sly, sideways glance. “Hey, I had my first kiss when I was eleven. Maybe I was a shrimp for my age, but hey, I was advanced. I mean, yeah, at first I thought maybe it was just hero worship, 'cause you and Mari were totally badass, and I couldn't believe you were letting a geek like me tag along, but I knew about sexual attraction, and that was there, and I knew the difference between that and the real thing. My mom, right? She didn't, so I made sure I knew the difference, and I felt the real thing for you and Mari. I'm not book smart like you are, but I'm not stupid.” 

Watching his face, I could see the light in his eyes dim a little when he said Mari's name, and my jaw tightened, but I didn't say anything. I wasn't sure what I would say, to start with. I looked down at my cigarette, gone dead in my fingers, tossed it away, reached for another. 

“Gimme one too,” he said, so I handed it over, lighted it for him. He took an abbreviated drag ~ he still wasn't much of a smoker, really, then ~ and said, “It started your senior year for you, with me, right?”

“What?” I looked at him, wondering if I'd heard right, around the sudden rush in my ears. 

“That's when you started watching me,” Mac said, almost as a prompt. 

“You noticed?!” The words ended in an embarrassing high note, almost a squeak. 

“Yeah I noticed. I was watching you too, wasn't I? At first, I thought you were just like, doing studies for your carvings, but you never did carve me. And when I compared how you looked at me to the other guys you looked at, it was different. Just a little, but I could still tell.” 

I wondered if I should show Mac the half dozen or so renditions of him tucked away in a locked box in my moms' garage in Onalaska, pieces I'd never shown him before because I thought they'd give me away. And, they were bad, because how does one carve a Mac? Or paint, or draw. No medium I've every tried could covey the tangle of emotions I've always felt for the boy: confusion and wavering between comrades and more, heat and frustration because I always knew giving in would change everything irrevocably. You can't pack that much gut twistage into a cut up hunk of wood. 

“Why didn't you ever say anything then? Christ.”

He just gave one of his obnoxious Gallic shrugs. I knew the answer of course. There was a high probability I would have freaked out on him. Shit, even when the probability, years later, seemed low I'd still freaked out on him. 

So I laughed. “I bet I wouldn't have ever even considered letting another guy kiss me if you hadn't done it first. I hated that kid though, the one who looked like a Chihuahua.” 

“And I woulda never thought about another guy like that if I hadn't always had a thing for you,” he said, shrugging again, then, “Well, ok, maybe not as soon.” 

I smiled down at him ~ Mac, ever bluntly honest ~ and ruffled his hair. 

“Gah, I hate it when you do that,” he said, ducking. 

“Really?” I hadn't known that. He'd never said anything. 

“I am not your fucking little brother, get it in your head already, alright?”

“Geesh.” I finally lit my own cigarette, and we smoked in companionable silence as we walked, considering, digesting, hand in hand, turned onto the Ave. The street was just waking up, a Friday night half past eight, and as we approached the busier section, we had to move closer to each other to hear each other amidst the foot traffic, the sleeves of our coats brushing against each other. 

After a while, I got up the nerve to ask, “So if it took you eight years to show me how you felt about me, how come it only took, what? Four? Five? with Mari.”

He inhaled deeply and leaned his head back, blowing smoke rings, misshapen in a light breeze. “Back in high school,” he began, “well, Mari's different than you and me. We could just play around like that, and it was all ok the next day. You know, you guys did too, right?”

I nodded, he had a point there. Maybe because with a girl/guy thing you weren't putting so much on the line. Society expected boys and girls to play like that. Boys and boys, there was more risk there, you had to be dead serious about it, or not give a fuck, otherwise even the strongest friendship might not stand up to the stress. I'd begun to understand that a couple years ago, and this was why McGee and I were just friends, and why all the other guys were not my friends. 

“The question is,” I said after a full cigarette’s length of silence, “what to do about this.” I pulled another one from my pocket, stopped to lean into the shelter of a wall to light it. “If anything.” 

Mac looked up at me, his face blank. He reached a hand toward my face and I flinched. 

“Look at that,” he said. “I don’t want you to do that anymore, be afraid when I touch you.” 

I looked at his hand, as familiar to me as my own. “So what do you want to do?” 

He tugged me by my sleeve back to the sidewalk, in the opposite direction from our previous path, back toward home, watching his feet for the length of a block, hair swinging in his face—as usual, my hand itched to touch it, brush it away, maybe stay there awhile just playing with the silky mess of it. What if I could? 

“It’s scary isn’t it?” Mac spoke my feelings aloud. “Like, what if it doesn’t work? What if we start something and totally fuck things up? That’s why I went to France in the first place, this last time. After what happened with Mari I was scared shitless over fucking things up with you too.” 

“That wasn’t—“ 

“Yeah, not my fault, whatever.” He paused in mid-stride, shook himself, as if he could literally displace by that action what hard feelings I knew Mari had left him with, continued walking. “I guess she’s screwed up right now—hell, maybe she’s changed for good.” 

“Could be,” I grimaced, remembering what I’d seen of her. 

“So anyway, when Mari and I were…whatever, I felt like you and I were growing apart. Coulda been why I was trying so hard with Mar, like compensation of something. But then, when I needed you, you were right there, and I felt as close to you as ever…maybe closer. You gotta know that scared the shit outta me. I mean, in my mind, back then fuckin’ around with Mari was—well, seemed like—the whole reason we had a problem. But I really, really wanted you.” 

He stopped, looking up at the sky, only a trio of dim stars visible beyond the city’s night lights. We’d reached our own fairly deserted block again. 

“So you went to France,” I said to the three faint stars. 

“So I went to France,” Mac said, “to put some space between me and you, so I wouldn’t fuck things up with you, and us being friends.” 

“You know,” I looked over at him finally. “That kind of pisses me off. You ran, and I just stayed here, sick over you, and that French bitch—remind me later to further elucidate my new-found feelings for French women.” 

He looked down from the sky then, and over at me, smiling an almost Mari-like smile, unfathomable meaning and kind of creepy. “But I came back…” He laughed, the kind of nervous sound a person makes just because. “I missed you so much, I had to come home. And I was so scared you’d find out about, oh, you know, but I guess it doesn’t matter now…” He was choking up. 

So I stopped then and pulled him tight against my chest, right there in front of God and everybody (well, like I said, the street was pretty deserted, but still). “Hey, it’s ok. I love you too.” 

“Yeah?” He looked up to my face, searching, and then moved to kiss me. Right in the middle of the street. But I let him—a short one. It was…felt right, I guess, even though I was kissing a guy right in the middle of the sidewalk in front of our apartment building, where as before I’d only done that sort of thing in dark corners and dimly lit rooms away from public eyes. But maybe that’s why it felt right, because it wasn’t that sort of thing at all. 

“Yeah, I do. Hey, let’s go in. It’s fucking freezing outside.” Out of the corner of my eye then I thought I saw a familiar figure, but when I turned my head it was gone. I looked over at Mac. “Was that—?” 

He shook his head. “I thought so at first, but I don’t think so.” 

But it had been. 

* * * 

A couple months later, almost a year from the time she’d looked me in the face and told me to get out of her life, I talked to her again. I was sitting on a bench, the first day of my last quarter at UW, looking over a class syllabus with a cigarette and a cup of coffee when she sat down next to me. 

“Matty Munroe, you look like shit. What have you been doing to yourself?” Mari said, a voice out of the blue that scared the hell out of me. 

“What the fuck?!” I jumped, spilling hot black coffee all over my hand, hissing at the burn. 

“You’re one to talk,” I said to her, though giving her a really good look-over, I almost bit my tongue. She looked a hell of a lot better than the last time I’d actually seen her, back the summer before. Her skin had a more natural color, and it looked like she’d filled out some, though Mari will always be on the skinny side of slender. Her mother is too, from what I’ve seen. She’d even made sort of an effort with her hair, pulled it back off her face, though it was still messier than most girls would allow outside their own front doors. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You look really good Mar. What’s up?” 

Part of me wanted to scream at her; what the hell was she thinking, just sauntering over and sitting down beside me, like she’d never broken our unit into three pathetic pieces, jagged edged wounds Mac and I were still trying to heal from? Part of me wanted to run like hell away from her again, like I knew I’d done before. Part of me was so glad she was alive and even healthy-looking I wanted to take her in my arms and hug her till we both couldn’t breath. 

But instead I just sat there, an uncertain smile stretching my lips, asking “what’s up?” 

She extracted a cigarette from the pack in her breast pocket, lighted it with a tarnished Elvis Zippo she produced in her hand from nowhere like a magician will pull a quarter from behind an ear, and I smiled in spite of myself. Then I noticed the canvas bag at her feet, which looked suspiciously like it was full of books. 

“You’re back in school?” I asked. 

She nodded. 

It was rude, but I did it anyway—I grabbed one of her arms and pushed the baggy sleeve back past her elbow, examining the pale, blue-lined underside of her arm in the bright noon light. The veins looked full and healthy, though there were scars from a lot more than needles there. But they were healed over, so I wouldn’t ask. Yet. WAIT SHE IS ADDICTED TO METH AMANDA WHY IS MATTY LOOKING FOR TRACK MARKS? OH FUCK YOU CHANGED THE DRUG YOU MORON. 

Surprisingly she didn’t hit me or jerk away, just sort of smiled, saying “A month in rehab, a month clean since. Easily annoyed, a little on edge, but mostly ok.” 

I couldn’t help it then. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into me, and I just held her there for a while, struggling with a flood of mixed emotions. 

And then she said “What if your boyfriend sees us?” with a coy look. 

All my muscles stiffened, but I didn’t let go of her. “So that was you we saw that night. He said he didn’t think it was.” 

She wriggled away from me. I told myself it wasn’t clear hurt I saw on her face, just the usual odd and indecipherable Mari expression. “Was that really Mac?” she demanded. “Last email I got he was still in France.” 

“Yeah, who’d you think?” 

“I dunno, didn’t see his face. Thought it was your version of a Mac substitute.” 

“Don’t be a bitch Mari. No, Mac came back the day before Christmas. I didn’t think you communicated with Mac after last April.” 

She had the grace to look maybe a little ashamed. “He still emailed for a while. I just never answered.” 

I raised my eyebrows, and she surprised me by taking the opportunity I offered for self defense. 

“I know I hurt him, ok? So you know I did the right thing. If I kept…hell, jerking him around” (she knew it. She admitted it. Fuck). “You were right to call me out on that. I did the only thing I could do.” 

After a minute absorbing that, I came clean too. “Maybe. But Mari, I shouldn’t have just left you hanging like that. Really, I hated myself for it. When someone you love is in a mess like that, you don’t just walk away.” Head in my hands, I spoke to my shoes. “I just didn’t know how to fix it.” 

She reached over to rub my back, like my mom used to when I was little and upset. “You were angry with me too.” 

“Hell yeah, fucking pissed. You were fucking with Mac, you fucked up yourself…” 

We sat there a while, under the trees, not talking but just being together, like we used to. 

THE HELL. THAT'S THE END OF THE CHAPTER AMANDA?


	6. Chapter 6

How insane were we, at the ages of 20 and 22, to involve ourselves in something like that? How arrogant? What gave us the guts to try changing a solidly-cemented friendship, a closer-than-brothers bond, into something so volatile, unpredictable? (As any relationship will become when you throw sex into the mix.) What made us think it could last, the two of us forging the sort of bond that even in this modern age is never easy to live out openly in society, especially when we had other options? I mean, it wasn’t like a guy/guy relationship was the only choice for either of us, we were both equally bisexual. 

And I have to give us credit for sticking to it those first couple months. Now, as far as it goes, Mac and I are more functional together than most other couples, whatever the gender makeup. (It’s Mari that throws us occasionally off-kilter, though I suppose that’s healthy enough on occasion as well.) 

But, like I started to say, those first couple months were a bitch. The reason so many fairy tales end with that first kiss must be because what follows after isn’t always pretty. 

First, there was the issue of definition. After the night of that first kiss (after which, by the time we got inside, we were so exhausted after the stress of a mostly sleepless night and a restless nervous day we collapsed on the couch and slept through the night) I wasn’t quite sure what we were to each other. We were so shy and jumpy when we were together we hardly touched at all for a week or two, not like the casual caresses or spontaneous kisses we, like most couples will, eventually grew into. Instead, it was like we were steeling ourselves for each physical encounter. For instance, I would be sitting on the couch studying or reading, and in my peripheral vision I would see him sort of circling, occupying himself with petty, even fictional little tasks, like picking non-existent lint off the chair. He would be watching me too, in quick stolen glances, and I would wonder if he was going to chicken out, or if he would finally come over. So I would shift my posture a little, open my position to him—like, if I was reading, I’d only hold the book with one hand therefore leaving one of my arms free, turn my body slightly toward him. Finally, just when I’d forgotten what I’d know he was thinking about and was once again paying attention to my book, I’d feel him slide up next to me, fitting himself in the crook of my arm tight up against me, saying “Watcha doin’?” And sometimes he would read along with me until he fell asleep there, or else we would start talking, or sometimes we would do other things. 

But eventually the time came when John McGee asked me to one of his infamous parties, the parties where I always ended up hooking up with some random guy because there was really no other reason to be there. I didn’t know what to say. Sure, Mac and I were fooling around a little, but were we exclusive? When it came down to it though, I realized I didn’t really want to go. The thought of hooking up with someone else sort of left me cold. 

A couple days later, I was sitting on the kitchen table, and Mac was fooling around with some food by the counter and stove. He kept looking over at me, and I could tell each time he was about to say something, but then he would change his mind and look away. Eventually sick of it, I demanded he just spit it out. 

“Well, this girl I was seeing last spring, before I went abroad, she asked me out again. I kind of told her no, because I was already seeing someone. I hope that was all right and stuff.” He fumbled with his spatula and it clattered to the stovetop, fell to the ground. I stood to pick it up for him, put it back on the stove, then pulled him into a hug. “Yeah, that was good,” I said to his hair, and he reached under my arm to turn down the gas and lifted his face to kiss me. 

That made clear, things settled into a more natural rhythm, but knowing someone inside out as a friend is not the same as knowing the same person as a lover. 

In a relationship, I tend to be pretty laid back I guess, in comparison to how Mac turned out to be. I found out the guy’s anxious as hell, needing constant reassurance, always wanting to know where I’m going, who I’ll be with, when I’ll be home. That aspect of Mac snuck up on me gradually. I didn’t really notice at first, just tossing careless estimations to his queries: “I might go downtown” or “I’ll probably be home before you leave for work.” 

The first time I said that, and then I wasn’t, he went ballistic on me. I don’t know where I’d been that afternoon—studying in the library (an easier place than home, with less distractions), or lost in thought on an aimless walk are the most likely places. Wherever it was, I know I’d just lost track of the time, thinking there was no urgent reason for me to be home. But I returned to an empty apartment, except for a note and two or three messages on the answering machine saying basically only “Where are you?” but more or less screaming Mac’s distress. 

I’d forgot I said I’d be home at a certain time, and thought something bad must have happened. I called his cell phone in a panic, to find the only thing wrong was that I wasn’t home when I said I’d be. 

After a while I learned the only way to compromise on that little hang-up was to get a cell phone. He’s the only one who ever calls it (I won’t give McGee the number) but it was the only thing that could make him happy short of hanging a tracking device around my neck. 

It’s not that he doesn’t trust me—he does, to a ridiculous extent, as later anecdotes may illustrate. I think maybe worrisome-ness has always eaten at him, but he never felt able to demonstrate it until I was actually his, in every way. It might have something to do with his dad dying when he was so young maybe. 

Still, it wasn’t like a regular relationship, not like if I would have picked a guy or girl out of my group of acquaintances or the general populous to spend my time and affection on. We hesitated before speaking to outsiders about what we had become, before touching each other outside the safeguard of our own rooms, and ended up avoiding such things in the end. The closest to us suspected though, like McGee and my moms, and eventually called us on it. 

Of all the friends I’d made throughout my life, in high school and college, in sports and at parties, outside Mari and Mac John McGee was the one who had wormed in the closest somehow—perhaps because he could be so slimy and squirmy, or perhaps because he was so shameless about those things. 

It was a couple weeks before the time I saw Mari again on campus, and I was lounging against a tree with a cigarette in one hand and a lot of black coffee in the other, watching people pass on the path before me waiting out the time till my next class. I must not have been watching very closely though because he managed to stand right in front of me for several seconds before he lost patience and tugged on the hem of my jacket. I looked down, jolted out of my musings, probably with a funny look on my face. Mom always said I look ridiculous when I’ve been daydreaming and someone surprises me out of it—like a kid who’s had his candy stolen from him, she says. I don’t know if that’s true, but McGee laughed at me when he’d got me to snap out of it. 

“Where the hell were you?” he said. 

“Uh…” 

“That’s what I thought. Where the hell have you been lately Matt Munroe? I’ve seen you once this quarter, and that for only long enough for you to shoot me down,” he said, speaking of the rejected party invitation. 

“Uh, just been a little under the weather lately I guess,” I excused myself. 

McGee cocked his head, looking me up and down, then lit a cigarette, the smoke from that mingling with the smoke from my own. “Yeah, you look pretty crappy sweetie.” (McGee is the only one who ever gets away with calling me things like that, only because he won’t stop even under threat of dismemberment.) “Paulo misses you. He says you’ve left us for another boy. I didn’t believe him until I saw you—from a distance, mind you, you always seem to duck away before I get close enough to say hello, darling—with the same pretty little thing no less than three times. Now I know you never see a boy more than once, other than Paulo and me. Anyway, it’s not that I fault your taste my dear—black and metal isn’t usually my style but with that face who can blame you? But we thought we were your best boys. Paulo is devastated.” 

“Black and...? McGee, that’s my roommate. You’ve met Mac—“ 

“Oh, I know,” McGee cut me off with a flourishing gesture. “He used to hang on Mari Macy. That’s how I know how devastating he is darling. Sweet little thing too.” 

“Ok then.” Placated, I lit another cigarette and glanced at my watch, hitched up my bag to begin the walk to class. 

“But it’s perfectly obvious you’re more than just roommates Matt dear, so don’t try to pull any of that with me,” he said from behind my turned back, and I froze, slowly turned. 

“What gives you that idea?” 

Now that he had my attention again, McGee smiled smugly and trotted to keep up with my longer stride. “Well,” he said, “I know how you met, you two and Mari. The pretty little one told me once at one of the parties Mari brought him to. A less wily one than myself would then assume your solicitous behavior towards him was that of an older brother, a protector,” he said, with the air of a knowing sleuth relating his findings. “But I’ve seen you with Paulo, and it’s very clear to one who knows your demeanor in that sort of circumstance that your relationship with this...roommate of yours is not at all the same thing. That boy’s got you wrapped securely around his little finger.” 

“You figured all that out from seeing us at a distance three times?” 

“I said no less than three times. Really, my dear, whenever you’re with him you’re even more off in the stratosphere than usual. You don’t notice when a little thing like me passes right under your nose. It’s perfectly all right dear, I can keep a secret, but do try to keep in touch, we miss you.” And with that, leaving me at the door of my destination open-mouthed and all protests unvoiced, he was off with a jaunty step. 

Then there was the dilemma of my mothers, or “the mommies” as Mac called them. The dilemma was first to tell or not to tell—to tell would seem almost like despoiling a delicious secret, popping the lid on a thing robs it of its freshness. But to not tell would make us almost like sneaks keeping a dirty secret, and we weren’t sneaks, or dirty. On the other hand, how does one just come out and say something like that? “Mom, Celeste, my best friend and I—yeah, the guy you’ve always thought of as a surrogate son—we’re sleeping together. No, not like a sleepover Mom. S-E-X.” I don’t think so. 

But they’re canny ladies, my mothers, and it didn’t take them long to get the gist of it. 

After a couple years of talking about it but never doing it, Mom and Celeste finally rented out their Onalaska property and moved into a house on Capitol Hill in Seattle. The last weekend of March, Mac and I were helping them move in when Celeste finally noticed and said something…to say the least. Of the two, Celeste’s always been the more astute (I get my absent-mindedness straight from my mother). We’d just finished moving the couch, Mac and I, and he probably thought Mom and Celeste were safely in the kitchen unpacking boxes. I was looking out the bay window, lost in thought, and Mac came up behind me to rest his chin on my shoulder and his hands at my waist. 

Then Celeste snuck up behind us. “Hah! Caught you two.” 

I jumped, causing Mac to bite his tongue. 

“Shit!” he said, hand at his mouth. More concerned with what I might have done to Mac than Celeste looking over our shoulders right that second, I took his chin in my hand. 

“Here, open up, let me see it,” I said. 

“It’s ok, see? Aaahhh,” he opened his mouth wide. I wiped away a dot of blood with my thumb but it didn’t look too bad, so I kissed his bottom lip and let him go. Then the fact registered that Celeste was standing right there and my face went hot. 

“Aw, how sweet,” Celeste said. “Out on the porch, both of you. I want to talk.” Reaching up and gripping each of us by a shoulder, she steered us out the front door and closed it shut behind her. Mac hopped up to sit on the rail and took out two cigarettes, lighting one for us each. 

“Give me one of those,” Celeste said, holding out a hand, then to me, “Don’t tell your mother.” 

Dragging in deep, then letting out the smoke, she said, “Well. I thought something was going on. I only needed that cute little display for confirmation.” 

I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at her. I’d known my moms would have to know sometime, and though I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when they found out, it wasn’t the short, almost chastising tone of Celeste’s voice. 

Mac must have felt the confused hurt behind my defensive posture, because he hopped down off the porch railing to slip his arm around my waist. 

“Right Celeste, so you confirmed,” he said. “So what’s the problem?” 

Her eyebrows raised and her shoulders slumped in that order. “You guys are really serious aren’t you? About each other. You’re not just experimenting.” 

“Celeste, you’ve known for years I’m bisexual, why would I be experimenting now?” Mac said, hopping back up on the railing and standing me between his legs with my back to him, rubbing away the tension quickly building in my neck and shoulders. He’d taken control of the situation, and was giving me permission, by that, to sit back and try to relax while he took care of it. 

“But not Mr. Jock Frat Boy there,” Celeste said. 

I scowled again and opened my mouth but Mac knocked the bill of my hat down over my eyes, thereby effectively cutting me off. “You never told them?” he hissed in my ear. 

Still blinded by the hat, I shrugged. 

“Um, Celeste, Matt’s been fooling around with guys for at least… Well I’ll just say I’m really not the first guy he’s ever kissed.” 

Celeste’s jaw pretty much dropped. I slouched down miserably. It wasn’t something I’d intentionally kept secret, but it wasn’t something a guy brings up in conversation over dinner either. And there was never a guy I was serious enough about to talk over. My moms knew I usually “played the field” to use their expression for it, and it was a lifestyle they never understood so we pretty much steered clear of discussing my love life. After DeeDee DeWitt, the only girl’s name I probably ever mentioned to them was April’s, if even hers. 

“Oooh-k,” Celeste said. “This puts a bit of a different light on things.” She rubbed her temples, talking more to herself than to us, “I am not supposed to be freaked out by this. Why am I freaked out by this? I’m gay, so what if my son is gay? Oh god, my son is gay.” 

That melted me, Celeste calling me her son. She and my mom had been together since I was five—I think Celeste had been something like 20 or 21 then—and though I’d long since thought of her as a mom, because she acted like a mom to me, I couldn’t remember her calling me her son before that. 

“Hey, shh,” I said, pulling her in a quick hug. 

“I just never wanted you to have to go through all the shit your mom and I had—still have—to go through. I mean, yay for Gay Pride and all but shit Matty—you’re our child. I never wanted life to be anything less than perfect and easy for you.” 

“Well I’m only half gay you know,” I said, leaning back into Mac. That felt odd—I’d never used the word “gay” before in reference to myself. 

“Oh that’s even better,” Celeste snapped, rubbing the back of her hand across her nose and eyes. 

“Celeste, don’t,” Mac said, handing her a white cloth handkerchief. She stared at it a moment before taking it from him, saying “You were always a strange child Mac. Sweet, but definitely strange.” 

“I like to think all things are the way they are for a reason,” Mac said helpfully, swinging his legs. His boot heels banged against the white rail so I smacked his knee to make him stop. 

“And God made you both a little queer because you were meant for each other, yeah yeah yeah,” Celeste said. “Boys, the people out in the world are not nice to kids like you. You two are best friends. Do you really want to risk that for sex?” 

“Celeste, I don’t believe in God. And I think Matty and I both know the world is full of assholes. More than most people, we’ve been dealing with their shit all our lives. What I’m saying is that because we dealt with all that shit before, I think we’re strong enough to do this now.” He gripped a handful of my t-shirt a hard, and with my head against his chest I could feel him draw a deep breath. “I’ve loved Matt since I was 12 years old. I don’t think it’s going away.” 

My heart beat hard once in my chest, so I could feel the reverberations of it in my neck and ears, and then it kicked off at a marathon pace, making me lightheaded. 

Neither of us had used the word “love” before, since that first night, and certainly not in front of anyone else. Mac hadn’t really said it at all—not to be taken that way, anyway. I gulped, and calmed my hummingbird pulse by telling myself he didn’t mean it that way. I guess I often soothe myself with ridiculousness, because we wouldn’t have been where we were if he hadn’t. A second later, though, I felt Mac’s thumb on my jugular, like he was counting the beats of my heart there, and then he put his cheek against mine, which felt good there—he didn’t have to worry too much about being clean-shaven yet, probably wouldn’t ever have to much. 

Celeste leaned back against the house, still clutching Mac’s handkerchief, watching us out of the corner of her eye while she pretended to pick at a chip in the paint on the window sill beside her. Finally she said “Ok. I believe you. Just…be careful with each other, ok? And no matter what happens—like for instance you end up hating each other in six months—“ 

“Hey! Have a little faith!” (That was Mac.) 

Celeste held up a hand, and Mac shut his mouth. 

“No matter what happens, you’re both my only boys. So if you break up or whatever, you’re still going to have to share me.” 

Mac hopped down from the railing again and Celeste let him kiss her on the cheek before she held him back. 

“Ok, you boys go on home while I talk to your mother.” 

”Wha—?” 

“Matt.” Even though I had about a foot on her, she still managed to look down her nose at me. “I can’t not tell your mother.” 

“Sure ya can’t…er, whatever. Celeste—“ 

“Look, I’ll give you enough time to get across the border to Canada but then I’ve got to let her know,” she joked. “Scoot—“ then she pushed us down the steps. 

Somehow she’d managed to slip a $50 in my pocket without me noticing, so Mac and I hit up Charlie’s on Broadway before going home, which he likes better than the Broadway Grill because of the music and the carpets and because the walls of the booths are high so it was easier for him to steal my drinks, back before he hit 21. 

And the next day, my mother called us, just to tell us she still loved us. Apparently, what Celeste had told her was no surprise at all—and she thought Mac and I had been fooling around for years. “I wondered why he was always up and going to Europe like that, leaving you behind. I guess that explains something anyway. Well, you’re both young, you’ll get it straightened out eventually.” 

Huh. All Mac and I could do was shrug at each other. 

* * * 

And then we found Mari again. Just when the cracks in the cement of my life’s path were beginning to smooth, the earth beneath my feet gave another mighty toss and I was once again struggling to find my footing. 

Almost everyone has a friend he can go for months or even years without talking to, and when he sees that friend again, nothing has changed—the two friends are just as tight as always. What if you’ve got one of those friends, but one day when you meet again expecting the same comfortable camaraderie, everything has changed? And you’re left trying to talk to a stranger with a familiar face. It had been like that with Mari, and then, that day, it wasn’t—it was suddenly my old friend again, and not a stranger, and I was suspicious as hell. 

Suspicious and nervous. What would happen when she contacted Mac again—and would she? And what if she didn’t—how would he feel? 

Would she take him away from me? 

Mac has a tattoo he got summer of 2000. It’s a small thing—the Browning in miniature, underside of his left forearm, three “M”s beneath the barrel. He wanted to have it, he said, so that when he was in Europe he could always look down, whatever he was doing, and remember where and what he came from. 

Back then I used to stare at it at night while he slept. It seemed no matter how much he tossed and turned in his sleep that damn tattoo was always in a position where my eyes would meet it directly. A confrontation? 

I hated that third “M.” I pictured hers as the one right next to the trigger. 

Then, there she was, that day I saw her again on campus, leaning against me like she used to, for all appearances back to normal. But I couldn’t help but wonder if that exterior of normality (normal for Mary anyway) was like some sort of Trojan horse—or something like a mail bomb; if I opened it, would it explode? 

And Mac’s face when Mari called that weekend said everything. 

Actually, it was his voice I heard first. I’d just gotten out of the shower and there was a towel over my head, so I couldn’t actually see much. 

“Where the fuck have you been?” floated to my ears though through worn terrycloth, the tone infusing the words with a mix of joy and trepidation. 

I banged lightly against the bathroom doorway, then cursed softly at impact, alerting Mac to my presence. 

“Matt, why the hell didn’t you tell me you saw—dude, you’re gonna burn that towel.” 

He was right. The frayed edge of the towel hanging over my eyes and just past my nose was beginning to be singed by the Marlboro clamped between my lips. I pushed back the edge of it but I’d lost Mac’s attention again. I could see him then, sitting on the edge of our favorite armchair, almost curled up in on himself and around the phone pressed to his ear, all his precious attention totally captured by that palm-sized bit of plastic and wire. 

“Yeah, he smokes too much now—quit football last fall you know. Oh, you knew? How? Oh, the newspaper.” (A sports humor columnist had made free with mockery after the story behind my broken arm got out.) Mac’s expression then had more than a touch of what one might interpret as jealousy. Pondering the meaning of that, I made my way to the bedroom to clothe myself. 

With my nakedness covered by the usual uniform of jeans and t-shirt I hesitated before pushing my way back through the bedroom door to the living room. Mari’s sudden arrival back into the scenes of our lives, apparently eager and ready to begin once again weaving the threads of her existence together with ours—well, you can’t blame me for wondering if she would totally fuck up the pattern Mac and I were only just beginning to weave with any certainty. And the up and down emotions caught from Mac’s side of that phone conversation worried me not a little. How, for instance, to interpret that flash of jealousy I’d caught moments before? Was it that Mari apparently followed along with my football career? It would be a stupid reason for jealousy, I thought, since around here the UW the Huskies were kind of hard to avoid. Or had it been something else Mari said? I told myself I was being an idiot trying to gauge the mood of a conversation based on only one side of it and opened the bedroom door, stepping into the living room to catch the last bit of Mac’s side of the thing. 

He was standing now and heading in my direction, reached up to run a hand through my damp hair, lifting it off my forehead and out of my eyes. 

“What are you doing right now?” he asked the phone. “Wanna meet Matty and me for breakfast or something?” Then, mouthed silently to me, “That ok?” 

I nodded, bent my head to light the next Marlboro I pulled from my pocket. 

“Stop that,” he said, audibly this time, pulling the cigarette from my mouth and walking it over to the window. I followed like I was tethered with an invisible line, grabbed it back before he could toss it outside. “You’re getting ash everywhere.” Back to the phone, Mac said, “Yeah, we know the place. Twenty minutes? Gotcha. Love ya Mar.” 

He flipped the phone shut. “I’m sorry Matt, but what are you at now? Two packs a day? I wish you’d cut it out, or cut back or something.” 

It really wasn’t hypocritical for Mac to bitch at me about it—the only time he smoked more than five a day was when he was nervous, and it was usually less. 

“Only a pack, at most. Really not that much. But I’ll try to be more careful with the mess.” 

“Mari thinks you don’t look good either,” Mac said in a tone too lightly conversational for the subject, and he darted away from me fast to begin fluffing pillows on the couch, keeping his eyes turned away from me, like he expected to be smacked or something. Not that I’ve ever actually hit him, though when we were younger I cuffed him upside the head a couple times. 

“So she’s said,” I countered, though keeping my tone as light as his, “but really Mac, who the hell is Miss Recovering Meth Addict to talk?” 

“Why didn’t you tell me you talked to her?” he asked again, but his head was bent concentrating on what must have been a particularly flat pillow—he couldn’t see my face so I lied. 

“I forgot.” 

“You—? Fuck, put that thing out and put your shoes on Matt.” 

Now I was the jealous one, jealous over his excitement at seeing her, like she wasn’t the one who’d left us, like she’d never hurt him at all. But Mac forgave with a child-like alacrity, making me wonder why the hell I’d been so bitter anyway. 

That Saturday morning on the Ave was only mildly busy—Shit, I thought, Mari really must be recovered if she’s lucid enough to walk out her door on a Saturday before noon—and I saw her through the window of the café as we approached, elbow on the table propping up her cigarette. The smoke created an evil halo around her otherwise angelic-looking head, and her disconcerting gaze was fortunately cast down at the menu. 

Mac ignored the approaching waiter, not waiting at all to be seated, making a bee-line for Mari and leaving me to point out the obvious to the waiter: “Uh, we’re with her.” 

After Mac let Mari out of the bear hug he’d trapped her in, he slid into the bench seat next to her, leaving the chair opposite to me. Mari crushed out her cigarette as I lit on (the first in a long chain), and Mac kept up a constant stream of his usual innocuous chatter until the food arrived and I was compulsively sucking at my third cup of coffee—Hey, if they didn’t keep refilling it, I wouldn’t keep drinking it. 

“So,” Mari said, broaching the unspoken at last, “you two finally got together.” 

“Whadya mean finally?” Mac asked, pausing in his consumption of “mediocre” eggs benedict, but I blushed, recalling her words that day we’d last talked, not counting our re-encounter on campus the couple days previously. “That’s what you’ve wanted all along, right?” she’d sneered at me. 

Now she just shrugged. Mac glared at her and threatened her with his fork, so she added, “You’ve been circling each other for years.” 

Mac turned to me wide-eyed. 

“I guess you weren’t the only one who noticed me staring at you all the time.” 

Mari laughed. 

“You know Mom pointed out the same thing,” I said. 

Mac took another forkful of egg and chewed, swallowed, then said “I guess you’re right. Well, we go at our own speed.” And then he was off chattering again, bluntly changing the subject to the bad music the café was piping in. I let my attention wander, fiddling with the food in front of me, eventually pushing it away to light a cigarette and do some people watching—a bad idea, apparently. Mac noticed when my attention was caught by a tall black-haired girl in high-heeled boots, and he kicked me hard under the table. “Matt!” 

“Huh? Ow!” I bent to rub my abused shin, but as Mac and Mari’s faces disappeared on my way down, I caught one of Mari’s mysterious smiles and a contemplative “Hm...” from her lips before the met the rim of her coffee mug. I hesitated in my descent a moment, my eyes meeting hers, before fully ducking under the table. It was one of those moments of absolute clarity, where everything slows to a crawl and you can see the paths laid before you as sharply as if you’re actually standing at a fork in the Yellow Brick Road, deciding which path to take—vaguely, as if through a mist and great distance, you can see where each road might lead, and at that moment you can choose the direction your life will take. Some of us know exactly where we want to go, and step out confidently in the direction we choose. Some of us, like me usually, are so bewildered by the opportunity; we automatically take the easiest way, or just close our eyes in exhausted confusion, spin around and point. 

The dozen or so times I’d kissed Mari—it seemed in a distant past but really it’d only been two or three years from that point—flashed through my mind, and then it was the old routine of sweating palms and churning gut. Her hand dangled under the table and I felt her fingers twist gently in my hair. I let out the breath I was holding, chose my path, and stepped onto it, reaching for her hand and bringing the fingertips to my lips, nipped at them gently. She caressed my cheek, tugged lightly at my earlobe, and the hand retreated once again to her lap. 

I pushed up the leg of my jeans and cringed at the ugly bruise already forming there, nearly smashing my skull on the underside of the table in my rush to rise and confront the inflictor of my wound. I hoped the fact my head had been upside down would give just cause for my flushed cheeks. Mari wore her usual poker face. 

“Mac you little fuck, those clodhopper boots of yours broke the skin!” 

He struggled between indignation and contrition before bubbling into a laugh. “That’s what you get. Watch where you’re lookin’ around me next time Matty.” 

“Ow,” I said, picking up my smoldering cigarette from the ashtray, and then picked up my hat from the chair beside me and pulled the brim down well over my face because I had no idea whose leg was rubbing up and down my bruised shin under the table. 

* * * 

My last quarter at the U was probably my best one there, the closest I’d felt to the easier years of 14 through 19 in Onalaska, with Mac and Mari, since I first set tires on I-5 north heading for Seattle. I learned again how to play hard, sleep hard, and work hard, but this time with more clarity of mind, savoring the moments as they passed rather than only vaguely noting them as they slipped away. 

Mari, of course, became a steady fixture in our lives again. She’d come over for dinner most nights, and then when Mac left for work we’d study. 

Weekends the three of us would usually go to the firing range in the mornings, then spend a lazy day exploring. We liked to find out of the way cafés, or restaurants that might be good but that no one knew about yet. We liked to discover new bands or musicians, new movies that could become new favorites, hole-in-the-wall art galleries. 

It sounds like we were having a grand old time, and we were, mostly. But it wasn’t paradise. See, there was still that niggling little problem of Mari’s sly sideways looks at me, and my body’s tense reactions to them. There were the little things only we two knew, that hurt my throat at night when I’d wake from a dream of slim pale limbs and luminous green eyes, to see the curve of Mac’s jaw so close to my mouth, and feel the rise and fall of his chest under the hand that usually found its way there in my sleep. The times things actually happened were relatively few in comparison to the measure of the thick tension between us and my own guilt: that first instance at the café of course; the time at the Egyptian (movie theater) when Mac left to get a latte, and I felt her hand on my back, crawl up under my shirt to hold my neck in a short massage (that did nothing to lessen any tension) then slide around to trace the outline of my mouth with an index finger; when, at an afternoon baseball game at Safeco Field Mac left for the bathroom, and under the cover of a standing ovation for a home run (which Mac was pissed he missed) she grabbed the brim of my hat and used it to pull my mouth to hers for a hard, devouring kiss and I couldn’t stop the movement of my hands as they reached out to grip her waist; or when, as the three of us walked down First Ave one Sunday morning after brunch, Mari pulled me into a deeply recessed doorway and...we almost got caught that time, and for days afterward I broke into a cold sweat whenever the incident superimposed itself like a filmstrip over my thoughts without warning. 

I didn’t know what we were doing, but I never paused to ask myself why, too involved in the drama of it—and maybe too afraid it would stop if I actually considered what we were doing. Occasionally I wondered, involuntarily, if she was only using me to get to Mac—maybe she and Mac were doing the same things, and if she didn’t distract me she knew I’d raise hell—or, knew (and this was more likely) Mac would never cheat, and so she used me as a substitute. 

But that, really, was the crux of it, that I always felt like she was after something, and whatever it was it wasn’t really me, exactly, but something she could get to through me. 

It was a couple days after graduation, and while Mac had been uncharacteristically subdued for the previous couple weeks, I was anxious, maybe in need of an explosion. I had no idea what I was going to do with myself: grad school? Get a job? Travel? Mom and Celeste had offered to fund a couple months bumming around Europe (they had both been before I came into existence, and insisted it was something every young person needed to experience; I, on the other hand, was afraid of flying). The thought of getting a job terrified me. I’d never actually had one, except a few collective weeks of baling hay in high school, paid under the table, when the neighbors needed help (“You’re a big strong kid, how ‘bout it?”). I’d been fortunate enough to have parents who could pay my way, all the way, through college. I was actually pretty damn spoiled. 

I decided I needed a night out. A binge, if you will. Mac sent Mari with me, a couple months shy of legal drinking age himself. So Mari and I got so drunk we couldn’t see straight, and then opted to take a cab back to her place rather than mine. Neither of us wanted to face Mac incoherent and smelling like a still, and Mac had been in an unexplainably nasty mood that night before we left. 

The night up till then is a little foggy in my mind now, as it was then. But after that, from the moment Mari’s apartment door closed behind us, each moment remains as sharp in my mind as a razor’s edge. 

And maybe all three of us knew what was going to happen the moment Mari and I stepped out the door together only a few hours before when a different door had shut, and she leaned with her back against it after she locked it behind us, and this time she didn’t start anything, only closed her eyes and her lips parted a bit letting out a small sigh, so that I couldn’t help but grab her by her lean sharp hips and pull her jarringly against me, so tight those sharp bones bit into the fronts of my thighs so I retaliated by sinking my teeth into her soft bottom lip… 

And it wasn’t as if we were swept away by the moment or anything, I probably could have stopped. But she’d been teasing me for two months or more and I was so tired of trying to hold back, because it was just Mari, after all, wasn’t it? The alcohol obliterated my shaky guard, and she was making it so easy, peeling off my shirt and her own and tossing them into some dark, far-off corner along with my hat—I couldn’t leave without the hat, could I? But with it gone, I guess I couldn’t hide my eyes from her anymore, and she could read me as easily as a large-print book. So she took my hand in hers and led me to the bedroom, walking backwards and she never took her eyes from my face, watching my expression every step of the way, so it was totally fair. She knew the look in my eyes never wavered, and I think if she’d discerned one bit of doubt it would have stopped right then. But it never did, even after she switched on the bedside lamp, and we both fell on the mattress—unmade, some things don’t change—and then everything else came off, in a slow and languorous but steady pace that didn’t change and probably even regulated the rate of our heartbeats and our breathing after, tangled up in each other and the blankets and sheets, we fell asleep. 

It rained that night, and when I woke the sun was reflecting off the sheen of wet on the streets outside and glaring brightly through the window. Mari slept all spread out, and had pushed me to the very edge of the bed where we slept, though an arm and a leg still lay heavily over my body, so the first order of business was freeing myself from the weight of her limbs and securing my position on the mattress so I wouldn’t fall. Then, blinking against the bright light, I numbly took stock of the situation, aware in the perspective of a new morning I might have fucked up but good this time. Mari remained dead asleep beside me. 

Eventually, I put my feet on the ground, and after adjusting to being upright, found my jeans and put them on, locked myself in the bathroom. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub I pulled my phone from my pocket, checked the time (10:33 a.m.) and speed-dialed Mac. I’d decided to face the music sooner than later. 

I was surprised he hadn’t called at all to figure out where I was, or when I’d be home. It was very un-Mac-like, and the phone rang several times before he picked up, allowing time for my blood pressure to spike while I waited. 

“There you are,” he said, finally answering. 

“Hi.” 

“Where are you?” It wasn’t accusatory, just inquiring, and he sounded so bright and unconcerned I almost choked, blurting out more bluntly than I’d intended, “I slept with Mari last night.” 

“I thought you must have,” Mac said, still bright and unconcerned, and I blinked. Was he making it difficult deliberately? 

“No, Mari and I slept together last night Mac. Don’t you get it?” 

“Oh.” And then there was only the sound of his breathing in my ear. I wiped one palm, then the other on my jeans. Then he said, “So...what’re you thinking? I mean, about how this will change things...I mean, will it? Matt, I can’t do this over the phone.” 

Oh god, do what? I thought, the full impact of what I’d probably done to us—the two of us, no, all three of us—punching me full-center in the gut, hard. 

“Ok,” I said, let out a breath. “Ok. Should I come home? Or—“ 

“No!” 

I winced. 

“No, you met me—both of you—at the café,” he said, speaking of our usual breakfast hangout on the Ave. “Thirty minutes,” he said, and he hung up. 

I let out another breath, put my head between my knees for a minute. 

Mari was sitting on the edge of the bed when I walked back in the bedroom, wrapped in the sheet, her face in her hands. She looked up when she heard me and the look on her face gave me the second gut punch of the morning. “Were you talking to Mac?” 

I nodded. 

She flopped back on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. “I’m sorry,” she said so softly I barely heard her. But it wasn’t her fault—not really, not entirely—so I sat by her on the bed, then after a minute laid down on my side, so I was watching her, in profile. 

“Sometimes,” she said, “I have no idea why I do what I do. I shouldn’t have contacted you two again. I’m sorry.” 

I wondered if I was imagining the sheen of wet I could see at the corner of her eye, streaking to her ear. Mari’s not a crier. 

“I’m not.” And I wasn’t sorry she was back, I knew then. Everything had finally blown to hell, so I didn’t have to worry about when it would all fall apart. It already had. Now all I had to worry about was how to put it back together again. And I started thinking, if it tumbled down around our ears so easily, maybe it was never built properly at all. 

For us all to go our separate ways, I wouldn’t consider an option. I knew there had to be an equation wherein the three variables of Matt, Mac, and Mari could fit and still equal a right answer. 

“You up to meeting Mac in...” I glanced at the bedside alarm clock, “25 minutes?” 

She rolled her head in my direction. “What?” 

“I think he wants to chew us both out for...” Not inviting him? Huh... “Mar, why have you fucked around with both of us? Is it just because you could, or—“ 

“No!” She sounded insulted. “More like because I couldn’t help it.” She swallowed audibly, looked back to the ceiling. “All my life I’ve never had anyone who loved me as well as you and Mac do. Or at all. And I love you both more than anyone. But—“ She swallowed again. “People aren’t supposed to work that way. Obviously. Not love two people like that. Because from the looks of things, it fucks things up.” 

“But what if it could work that way?” 

Or, I could just chuck it all and go to Europe, I thought, rolling onto my back and linking my hands behind my head. Mari sniffed, stood and wiped her face with the back of her hand, and then gave me a wicked, child-like grin before stalking to the bathroom. 

She was ready in ten, and we were in the café and drinking coffee by the time Mac got there, seven minutes late by the clock. We usually ordered for each other, whoever got there first; being creatures of habit it was always the same thing. But we didn’t know if Mac would want anything—or really, we didn’t feel comfortable taking the liberty, not knowing what his mood would be. Mari was fidgety. Then he finally blew in—really, he did, breeze in his hair, sun glinting off it, hips swinging in leather. 

Mari’s mouth opened a slit, but her nose was buried in her coffee cup by the time he sat. He raised his eyebrows, I nodded no, so we ordered. Mari and I picked at our food and Mac ate with gusto, but no one said a thing. I spent the lull watching their body language. Mac was fluid, almost blasé, while Mari remained restless and tense. Just to look at her you wouldn’t see it, but she switched the position of her cigarette too often, made too many bites on her fork that never made it to her mouth. I could feel my own muscles stiffen, nearly fiber by fiber, beginning where my neck met my back and radiating out, and my head was aching as a result. 

“You’re giving yourself a headache, aren’t you?” While Mac could never read Mari as well as I could, he had me down like a kid in Catholic school knows his catechism. “Ok,” he said, laying his fork carefully on his plate, taking his coffee mug into both hands—and maybe he wasn’t so nonchalant at that, as I watched him huddle around the cup for warmth. “We gotta figure this out. I know what’s been going on between you two, but I couldn’t say anything till you finally told me... Well, now I have to look at it...” Bitterness infused his tone. 

“Wait,” Mari said. “What? We didn’t actually do anything till now.” 

What had he thought? That Mari and I were fucking each other all over the apartment every night after he left for work? That made me mad—maybe unjustifiably, because eventually we had done something, but even so. 

“So you thought we’d been—all this time, and you just kept quiet about it?” I shook my head, then bent to light a cigarette, covering most of my face with my hands. There were layers here, misunderstandings piled on top of mistaken assumptions and things unsaid, and I thought it would be a bitch of an onion to peel. 

Mac frowned, his eyes darting between the two of us. Mari met him straight on, but I was too angry still to look at anything but the smoke I blew out in streams, that made its way in whorls and eddies to the cloudy layer above our heads. 

“You can honestly look me and the face and—Matt, look at me—and tell me...” When I looked at him though, a corner of his mouth quirked up a bit. “Whoa, you’re pissed, huh? Ok, shit, I’m sorry, nothing happened. Till—“ 

“There were...” Mari began. 

Mac lunged toward her like a cop in interrogation, looking for anything to prove his instincts hadn’t misled him, and like a startled cat Mari looked wildly for escape. 

“There was tension,” I finished, leaning back on my chair away from them both. “But nothing...happened.” 

Mac leaned back then, shuttered, shrugged, sighed. “Emotional infidelity’s a tough one. Not technically wrong—you can’t help it, I shouldn’t hold it against you, but for so long you gotta know it still hurts.” 

“It’s not like that!” Mari said. “Matt and me—that’s my fault. But I tried the same with you. What you had for me isn’t there. You didn’t notice me.” 

That was new to me—and obviously to Mac too from the way he was dabbing spilled coffee off his wrists and pants. We’d both only noticed her gestures toward me. 

Without prompting she continued. “I almost didn’t call you,” (Mac, that first time). “I was always afraid you’d finally see each other, for what you really are to each other. Because when you did, I wouldn’t belong anymore.” 

Not many can see themselves so clearly, why one is who he is, and does what he does. I never realized Mari could until that moment, she holds her hand so close to her chest. 

“Can you guys fix this if I go?” 

My earlier idea—maybe somehow work it with three—I thought had flown out the window when Mari pointed out Mac hadn’t responded to her; my head was spinning so wildly that morning though I forgot my earlier fears that Mac would want her back, and the signs I’d seen that made me think, at first, he might. 

She stood up, tossed a $10 on the table for her share. One more gut punch as I watched her stand to walk away, but I couldn’t say anything. I’d already have to fight, I thought, to keep what I’d nearly—probably—thrown away. 

“Fix it,” she said, a fierce demand tossed over her shoulder, and then she was out the door. It didn’t hit her on the ass as she went out, but I saw, swinging, it came close. I wanted, again, to say something—to whom, I don’t know, because Mari was gone and Mac sat there stone-faced, staring at the wall behind where she’d sat. 

And then, he melted. No longer made of granite, his face and body displayed a run of thoughts and feelings I couldn’t even identify before each changed and passed and then, “Well shit,” he said, blinking, stood so fast the chair skid away from his body as he launched himself at the exit and slammed the door, pounding away in the direction she’d taken. 

“Huh.” With ponderous precision, I pulled out my wallet, counted out $20 (and after a thought, and extra $5) and placed them on top of Mari’s $10. Out on the sidewalk, I bent in to light another cigarette, pushed my hat back from my eyes, raised my arms above my head for a good long stretch in the damply glittering sunshine. Hands in my pockets, cigarette dangling, I sauntered off in their direction.


	7. Chapter 7

I know what you’re thinking. 

How the hell do they live like that? 

Maybe the most confusion lies in Mari’s direction. 

There are guys like Mac and me everywhere, faggot freaks living in sin. But why would a pretty young girl choose to live her life weighed down by a couple of homo perves? 

Or maybe not. Maybe you consider yourself a liberal, and you’re thinking thoughts that maybe go like this: You go your way and I’ll go mine, as long as you don’t parade your lifestyle in front of me and my family. 

Or perhaps you’re not only liberal, you’re something along the lines of some sort of activist. You’re the person thinking: Good for them! More power to ya kids! You show those fascist conservative right-wing bastards! 

On the other hand, you could have much less complex notions. I bet you’re the one thinking: Dude, sweet, orgy every night! That chick knows it, two’s better than one. Maybe I could come, and bring a friend? 

But the most likely scenario is this: 

I haven’t got any good goddamn idea what any of you are thinking—about me, Mari and Mac, or anything else. Just like you wouldn’t have known a thing about me if I hadn’t just told you. 

And you can bet your firstborn I haven’t told you everything, and you can also bet what I have said isn’t the whole truth. 

Think about that. Most people can’t even be completely truthful with themselves (Oh, I’m not an alcoholic, I just like a few drinks after work; I’m not fat, I’m just big-boned; he didn’t really mean it when he said that; I know she really loves me; my kid’s not stupid, he’s just a little slow) let alone tell the unvarnished whole story to God and the neighbors. 

And really, would you want to know? 

Anyway, the point is, how can you presume to judge without having all the pertinent facts? “Just the facts, ma’am,” but oh, you’ll never get them all. I’ll never get them all. 

So you live and let live, and live based on what you do know: what your gut tells you, which is what you feel. That’s living by truth, the only truth you can ever really know. 

It should be good enough for anyone. 

* * * 

On the other hand, what if your truth—what if what you feel is the absolute perfect ending for you, doesn’t quite mesh with the other person (or persons) in your game plan? It’s a hard thing, but it happens sometimes. 

Like once, I was having lunch with Paulo. He was a mess, because he’d just broken up with the guy he thought was the love of his life. They’d only been dating a few weeks, so I was a little skeptical on that point, but that’s Paulo for you. In any case, he said some things that noon that really hit home hard. 

Paulo said this: he was having his last talk with the guy, bawling all over him by his own account, because he didn’t understand. The guy was so right for Paulo. 

And the guy said to Paulo, “Yes, maybe, but did you ever think you might not be right for me?” 

That turned on a light for Paulo. “You know Matt, it’s so sad. I think in this awful world, even if you do get to find your soul mate, sometimes it’s just not meant that you should be together, you know chico? You, with your whole heart, your own and unbroken, you’re lucky now. But for you, I hope there’s always so much good fortune.” 

* * * 

After Mac ran out of the café after Mari, things fell into place frighteningly fast—so fast nearly a year later my head’s still spinning. 

Mac and I stayed in the apartment till the end of June, and then we found the place—the three of us—near Capitol Hill (only a mile or two away from my mothers, but they’re not—never have been—nosy, so it’s ok). 

I decided to take a year “off” and work, then go to grad school, so I decided to spend a year doing the nine to five thing while working at a bank as a teller. 

Mac bounced around from restaurant to bistro to café, not because he was ever fired, but because he had yet to find his niche. Mari worked straight through summer sessions and graduated after this last winter quarter, and is working on increasing the rate of her novel output. She moved in with us last September. 

You think about how people get together—people in romantic relationships and such. There are steps to it: the meeting, the start of attraction, the beginning to care, the realization of love, and the levels of commitment that go with each step. 

For the three of us, there was none of that—or there was, but it was all bass-ackward. So when the ultimate commitment came—the step that would have been a marriage of sorts if the law allowed for it, or if any of us had grown up familiar with and inclined to the convention of marriage—it came quietly, without any of us noticing the impact, the changes to our dynamics were so subtle. We lived in the same house, we slept in the same bed finally—the only largely tangible differences—and it seemed as though we were moving toward that point since the day we met. 

We thought we were completely sane of course, that what we did made perfect sense. But others weren’t as sure. While mom and Celeste had been fine with the me-and-Mac thing (after Celeste’s initial freak out), the addition of Mari to the mix—in that way—made them kind of uncomfortable. When Celeste realized what was going on—or began to, actually—it was Labor Day. The first of September, 2003, Mari moved in with us, news my mothers took matter-of-factly. But when Celeste spied Mac nuzzling Mari in the kitchen, she yanked me by the front of my t-shirt into the back bedroom, a troubled vertical line creasing the center of her forehead as she hissed, “What’s wrong with you and Mac?” 

I realized what she must have seen, but still tried to play dumb. “Huh? Nothing.” 

“I saw you see that, him and her. Is it them now again” (she referred to the Mac and Mari flirtations of high school) “or what?” 

“Uh, well…” I shifted my weight from foot to foot, jammed my fists in my pockets. “Not them now. Us now. You know…” 

“Oh for…” Her hand smacked to her forehead, trailed down her face. “You kids are determined to try everything you can to screw your heads so badly you’ll be in therapy for a decade. That’s it, isn’t it?” 

I just shook my head, put an arm around her shoulder, steered her out the door toward the backyard, where Mom was hanging out with the friends they’d invited over for the holiday. “We know what we’re doing Celeste. We’ll be fine. Now let’s go find you a beer.” 

“I want at least a margarita,” she muttered, but she leaned in and rested her head on my shoulder. 

Later, my mom just rubbed her temples and sighed. Then she handed me a beer. 

And now John McGee’s figured us out, and apparently doesn’t think much of our prospects either, though we’ve made it through a year together. 

I think about last spring, the things we said and the ways we got to where we are now. And I wonder, going over it all in my mind for the umpteenth time today, if McGee could have a point. Did Mari join us just to get to Mac? Obviously, it wouldn’t be me she was after. It’s always seemed Mac’s our strongest link, the touchstone for us both. 

But that’s actually the least of my worries where Mari is concerned. 

* * * 

It’s the end of May, and these past four weeks, a little more or less, Mari’s been acting strangely. I don’t mean this by a normal person’s standards. By those, Mari will always be strange. But she’s not quite herself. 

The parts that make up Mari are varied—open her dresser drawer and you find a bizarre assimilation of things. She’s not a magpie, as many women will be, clutter and string and shiny things stowed away in boxes, drawers and empty corners for a future date of usefulness that never arrives, but she is human, and as such the small and tangible pieces of our lives tend to stick to us if we stay in one place long enough; dust on a coffee table, or, in Mari’s case, a laser Floyd ticket stub from a show at the Seattle Center, some shotgun shells and a random note from yours truly (kept for sentimental reasons? One would hope but I can’t tell), a short hollow glass tube charred at one end, another ticket stub for the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company’s Nutcracker Suite, her passport, an old checkbook, a set of keys (I recognize one as the small key to the gun cabinet in her dad’s basement), several expensive but tasteful pieces of jewelry in the form of necklaces and earrings (from her father for birthdays and Christmases—he knows she won’t wear bracelets), a small paperback copy of Harold and the Purple Crayon (I don’t know), a bottle of Midol, a fairly recent photograph of the three of us on my moms’ couch (I’m asleep in it), a tube of lip stuff (kinda pink-shimmery), the odd tampon, a switchblade, some loose razor blades (rusty—I contemplate tossing them, but the violation-of-privacy factor wins out and I don’t), a used emery board, a few pens and a couple memo books, a tangle of hair elastics and bobby pins, an old toothbrush with grease-blackened bristles, a pair of Chanel sunglasses, a scratched cats-eye marble, and half a bar of Godiva chocolate. 

Anyway, Mac sent me upstairs to gather laundry, and I pick through the pieces of our odd collective wardrobe cast on the floor around the bed and in the closet and bathroom. Mac’s and Mari’s leather and silk and cashmere and other wool items are picked out of the jumble and tossed back in the closet, then everything goes in a pile on the bed to be gathered up in the sheets. I can see bright light still shining through the blinds, not quite as bright as this morning with the sun now well overhead—or perhaps with my head not as sensitive. For some reason, Mac’s on a massive cleansing kick, and even though I told him he was crazy he’s got some idea of getting all the party mess cleaned up and the laundry done, with the sun, and my chances of freedom, slip with the passing hours toward the western horizon. 

I’m not sure if we could get Mari to come with us though, which could be why Mac, despite earlier suggestions of outside-the-home recreation, seems determined to chain both himself and me to spring cleaning the house. 

The strangeness started with a 4 a.m. phone call. Anna Macy—Mari’s mother—had somehow managed to get a hold of a phone, and immediately rang up her daughter. It was the house phone, so she must have looked us up in the white pages. 

Mari and I were alone in bed—Mac’s usually up by 3:30 a.m. for his current job—and I heard the phone first, ringing from the tangled mess of cords hooked to the power strip by our bed. Eyes half open, I grabbed the offending noisemaker and silenced it by clicking on the receiver, and then woke up enough to realize I should put it to my ear. 

“Marianna Macy please,” said the cold, proper voice on The line that should have been a clue—no one calls her that, not even the Department of Motor Vehicles on her drivers license, but I was groggy. 

So I shook Mari beside me, quite violently as one must shake a sleeping Mari in order to get any sort of attention at all. 

Automatically, she let out soothing murmurs, her eyes still closed, arm reaching over to the cold spot where the nightmare-prone Mac usually sleeps. Encountering empty space, her brow furrowed in half-sleep, and then her other arm flailed around and nearly met a sensitive spot of my anatomy before I caught her hand. But a wicked right eyebrow raised let me know she’d been aiming. “Five more minutes Matty.” 

“The phone’s for you brat,” I said, and put it to her ear. After nearly poking herself in the eye she latched on to it, and I pulled up the blankets ready to wrap myself back in sleep. But the voice on the other end of the connection was abnormally loud. It hissed and spit from the phone like an angry snake, gaining even more volume as it carried on. Her eyes widened and even in the relative dark I could see the flush of sleep draining from Mari’s cheeks, leaving her ghostly pale. 

After a few frozen moments, she dropped the phone, which landed with a faint sound of impact on the down comforter. I picked it up but the connection had already been cut. 

“Mar, what the hell?” 

But she was scrambling across the tossing pond of our bed. Her feet hit the floor with a flat-footed smack. Then she was in the bathroom from where the sounds of retching emitted, and I winced, knowing a good boyfriend would go in and hold her hair back for her but Mac’s really better a that sort of thing. 

The phone rang again, and half-absently I picked it up. “Macy, MacPhrae and Munroe residence, may I ask who’s calling?” 

“Oh dear,” said a distraught voice over the wire. “I was afraid of this.” The voice didn’t sound at all like the first one, though it was another woman—a flustered one. 

“Excuse me?” 

“This is Marjory, I’m a nurse at the Riverside Rest Home. I believe one of our guests managed to dial this number—“ 

“Yeah, she did,” I said, knowing then who must have called. “I’d appreciate it if you could keep better track of her in the future.” I was angry, I hung up. 

The smell of tobacco smoke wafted from the bathroom, and I heard Mac’s car start up, pull out of the driveway, drive away. So it fell to me. I pulled on underwear and a t-shirt I fished out of a pile on the floor, then found Mac’s bathrobe on the other side of the bed, carried it across the room to the bathroom, tapping at the half-open door, “Mari?” pushed it open. 

She sat against the wall, using the toilet bowl as an ashtray. Her skin had a grayish cast and her eyes were glazed and lifeless as dead cat curbside road kill, focused on the blank pink wall straight ahead. I lifted her from the wall a little to wrap the navy terrycloth around her shoulders and she surprised me by just sort of crumbling into my arms, breathing fast and hard, like crying, even though her eyes were dry and no sound came from her throat. So I pulled her onto my lap and took the cigarette from her fingers, dropped it in the toilet, and just held on. 

After that we didn’t talk about what happened—to do so would embarrass the stalwart Mari to no end—and I still have no idea what Mari’s mother said to her that morning. 

I’d carried Mari back to bed, and after she collected herself she got up and dressed, I heard the front door slam, and she was gone. 

I have no idea where Mari goes. She doesn’t own a car, but she didn’t come back that day. Since then, she’ll leave sometimes for two or three day stretches. Mac doesn’t talk about it. I went over what happened—a cursory explanation at best but he didn’t press for details—when Mari disappeared the first time. He averts his eyes when those little Mari anomalies occur: the way she jumps like a scared cat at the smallest disturbance behind her back; the increased measure of her silence—she doesn’t even hear us when we speak to her—and the decreased measure of her food intake; the way she’ll walk aimlessly around the house, the distance of her eyes clearly indicating she’s not on the planet, while she picks things up—books lying around, my carved figurines, throw pillows—playing with them in fidgety fingers, putting them back down or away in odd places (I found the book I was reading in the vegetable crisper the other day; Mac finally found his keys in the silverware drawer), not aware of her actions really at all. She doesn’t like to be touched or kissed, and when she’s home she rarely sleeps, just pounds away at her keyboard, and when she does sleep it’s usually a nap on the couch. Mac never asks her if she’s coming to bed anymore. 

On Friday though—two days ago—she slammed into the house after her longest stretch away—four days—right around the time Mac was heading upstairs for bed. She smelled like outside—like mown grass and light rain—and she kissed Mac before he went upstairs, though it was a perfunctory motion it was more than she’d done in a couple weeks and Mac just stood there and blinked as she whirled away into the kitchen. I just shrugged at him and he continued upstairs. 

Sometimes I think Mari’s like a little wild animal, like an untamed kitten. If you chase after her she runs to hide, but show no interest and she approaches cautiously, by increments, until she’s butting her head up against you for attention. 

She came out of the kitchen with a handful of cookies and a beer and plopped down next to me on the couch, nuzzling under my arm (dislodging my book) as she pressed up tight against my side. 

“What’re you reading?” 

“A Moveable Feast—it’s Hemingway’s accounts of living in France in the 1920s.” 

“Read out loud,” she demanded. 

So I did, and she listened, feeding me pieces of cookie, until she fell asleep and I carried her up to bed, tucking her in close to Mac. He stirred, looked up at me, and I clenched my jaw, wanting to hit something then, pound at whatever it was till my knuckles were bloody and raw, because it wouldn’t do any good to hit either of them. Mari will always shred Mac to bit by confetti sized bit, because Mac will always want more from Mari than she’ll ever be able to give. 

And I realize my jaw’s clenched tight now from thinking about it as I drop the pile of dirty laundry next to the washer. Mac’s followed me from the kitchen and I’ve flinched at his hand reaching to soothe my stiff muscles. Recalcitrant, I catch his hand to squeeze it quick, smile. 

“Ok,” he says. “You’re right. It’s enough. Where d’ya wanna go?” 

“Uh…I’m not sure I actually care. Just out I guess.” 

We ask Mari if she cares to go to the park with us, expecting her to say now, but she wants to come. 

It’s actually a good 80 degrees and everything outside is good smelling. I’ve got a book, Mari’s dragged along her laptop. Mac and I smoke a blunt in the cab of my truck, but Mari got out and settled herself and her laptop and two of the case of Heineken on a park bench several yards away. That’s another Mari anomaly Mac’s not paying attention to. She never turns down a chance to smoke unless she’s been regularly tweaking. Mac himself is now unsettled, and smokes only about half what he usually does. 

And then we tumble out of the truck and make our way to the park bench where Mari sits with the rest of the Heine and a bag of sandwiches. Mac takes one out and begins to demolish it. I hand Mari hers and she absently unwraps it but leaves it lying there while she types. 

After Mac starts his second sandwich, he notices Mari still hasn’t touched hers. But that’s usual. “Eat!” he barks again, and she says “I am,” her hands still on keyboard and eyes on screen. 

I take deep breaths, wondering what I was thinking wanting to go anywhere with these two today. But like I said earlier, it’s an odd day, perhaps the first we’ve lazed around and spent time in each others’ company in months. And yet, we’re not all here. I can tell by Mac’s face, as he lays shirtless on the ground worrying a cigarette, nursing a beer, that he’s gone away. Mari was never with us in the first place, having merely removed her physical person and the tool of her occupation from one location to another while living in some place of her own invention inaccessible to anyone else. 

The weed I smoked too much of to make up for Mac’s disinterest in it makes my tongue thick and stupid and my brain slow. I reread a paragraph three times but the words refuse to meet my eyes in any order that makes sense, so I flip to the first page and amuse myself by trying to count how many times the word “and” appears in the text. The warmth of the sun on my neck, however, gives me the yawns and my eyelids droop. I can’t feel my fingers, and realize I’ve been propping myself on my elbows too long, so I roll onto my back, flopping the book open and laying it across my face to protect my eyes, and sleep. 

I’m back in Onalaska, in the pasture outside the house where I grew up. The ground all around me is a shifting, waving sea of green, and the sky above mirrors its motions but in shades of blue. I’m wearing my old work clothes—a pair of Carharts I haven’t seen in years and an old baseball t-shirt I know Mom started using as a dust rag before I left home. 

The strangest thing though, about the dreamscape before me, is the quality of the quiet around me. I can hear the breeze rustle the grass blades against each other, shift the position of the poplar’s leaves, the trees lining the creek bed to the south of me, turning them silver to green to silver again as they twist in the wind. Almost, I can hear the thin wispy blanket of pale clouds rush overhead as they’re blown westward. I face the west, and the sun is leaning that direction, a bright white-gold disk against the blue. 

But the highway to my left is oddly deserted, especially for a day so bright and clear as this, and I can’t sense a single living thing anywhere around me. The birds are silent. Not even a gnat hovers above the grass. 

The breeze collects itself and throws at me a sudden strong gust, pressing my clothes tight against me, and my arms go all-over goose bumps, raising the summer-bleached hairs there. It isn’t just the wind. 

I know if I scream, no one will hear me. There’s no one there to hear me. The white farm house behind me is deserted, its windows shut and shuttered tight. There’s no one in the whole world but me. Desolate, unsure, I pull the bill of my hat down over my eyes, jam hands deep in my pockets, and turn towards the river. 

“Ow.” The sound echoes in the nothing, coming back at me raucous, discordant, and five-fold, and I clap my hands over my ears, squeezing shut my eyes tight waiting for the distorted sound of my own voice to fade before bending to examine what I’d nearly twisted my ankle walking on. 

The Browning. 

The pistol is dirty, damp, but loaded, and I bet I can get a round out of it. Somehow I know it hasn’t been abandoned in the weather long enough to disable it, cause it to malfunction. 

I release the safety, and the gun is still so well-oiled it barely makes a sound. Mac always kept it well. 

They haven’t been gone long, but long enough for me to know I’m all by myself. 

The goose bumps on my arms raise again, so sharply it hurts, like thousands of pinpricks, and I can feel the same effect on my head under my hat. 

The sun has been busy in my reverie, sinking several hours’ worth in the few moments of my confused contemplation, painting the sky a rather clichéd blood red. 

That’s when I know, and I wake, sitting straight up fast like a body from a grave in a B horror movie, startling Mac who’d been reaching out to wake me. 

“Oh shit,” I say. The western horizon before me mirrors the bloody sunset sky of my dream. 

“Hey, chill baby. I’m the one who’s supposed to have the nightmares,” he says. 

“You’re not allowed to call me that,” I growl, but accept his hand up, his warm arm around my waist on the walk back to the truck. Mari’s a few yards ahead of us, lugging her laptop case. 

“You’re cold ba—Matty. You got goose bumps.” 

I wanted to beg him not to leave me ever, to make the awful desolation of my dream-feelings stay away forever, but I keep my mouth shut. I suppose I’m not evolved enough as a male to blurt out something like that. 

But the dream felt a lot like a premonition, and it’s not the first I’ve had. 

It’s why what John McGee said hit so hard. It rang in me—a dissonant, jangling, unpleasant note but true for all that. And if it’s something he can see, well, he’s proved himself to be observant in the past, but still.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s strange, how as adults we’re so different from how we were as children, yet so much the same. Of course, physically, we’re bound to be taller and stronger. Some of us stay roughly the same shape, such as Mari. Obligatory school pictures that line her father’s den show a small-boned, waif-like child as a perfect Mari in miniature. Some of us change quite a lot, like Mac, who in baby pictures up to about fourth grade was downright chubby compared to his now lean frame. I was kind of scrawny as a kid myself, and I’m really not anymore. 

But it’s not only physical. It’s said our true personalities don’t really form until adolescence, or afterward. I can see reasoning behind it. It’s the events of our lives that shape us—what happens to us, what we do, the people we meet and form friendships or partnerships with, or even fleeting acquaintances. 

I wonder sometimes what Mari would have been like had her mother never gone after her with that knife. I wish, almost, I’d known her before, known how that occurrence shaped her, could trace those quirks in her personality and see where they come from. 

She shows so little of herself I wonder sometimes how I came to love her. It seems it’d be something like walking into a dark room and accepting to won and/or care for what’s in it without really being able to see anything there at all. I never was one for religion, but I can understand it. Loving Mari is an act of faith. At the same time, how could I not return what was given so freely almost from the first? 

I still clearly remember the first time I saw her. I was uncertain that morning, dragged in the wake of two guys on the team who’d more or less dared me to come along, and who abandoned me at the door of the dilapidated old barracks-like building that served as the region’s firing range. 

A middle-aged man asked me “What’s your name son?” and without really listening to my answer handed me a suspiciously antique-looking rifle, patted me on the head (or rather, sort of gripped it, a motion that would have been hair-ruffling if I hadn’t been wearing a hat). I just stood there a minute, awkwardly holding the big gun, probably looking at it like it was about to bite me. 

A quick scan of the room showed exactly what I expected to see: a bunch of guys between 10 and 18 standing around in beat up boots and work jeans, some of the older ones already succumbed to the lure of chew and surreptitiously spitting in cups or cans, a bunch of kids who’d already learned, more or less, to equate the size and strength of and the skill with which they used the guns in their hands with the ones hanging between their legs. A closer perusal, however, revealed two exceptions to that rule standing in the far corner, and they were staring at me. 

I didn’t really look at Mac at first. He was short, scrawny, and male. Mari had all my attention, her eyes holding me even from all those yards away. She was tall for her age, and for a girl, and dressed like an old man. She held her rifle in an easy grip—it was obviously hers, top of the line and gleaming with care it couldn’t have been a loaner from the club, but it was more the way she carried it, like an extension of herself, that proved ownership. And then she leaned down to say something to the kid standing next to her. He looked as uncomfortable as I was, or more if possible, and wore huge jeans accented with chains and a hooded sweatshirt that could have fit at least two more of him. He listened to her, nodded, and made his way across the floor to me. Stopping in front of me, he looked up at my face and said “That’s Mari, and I’m Mac. She says you should come hang out over there with us. If you want.” 

He turned and started walking quickly back to her without even waiting for an answer, like he was afraid to be away from her too long. I nodded anyway and followed, lugging along the gun, halting when I was directly in front of her, almost as if presenting myself for inspection. “I’m Matty Munroe,” I said. 

She nodded, her solemn expression unchanging. “Let me show you how to hold that. You’re going to shoot your foot.” 

And from that day on, that was how it went. Mari rarely takes, but gives freely. It’s strange and rare in someone who was shown so young just how hard life can kick you in the ass. At the same time, it’s hard being close to such a person, wanting to give in return but having what you hold out so often ignored or rejected. And while she gives freely what she can, it’s what she can’t give that hurts most. Mac needs constancy, firm stability; he demands full disclosure in order to feel he’s standing on firm ground. But Mari’s weird eyes will always conceal secrets, and not even secrets kept intentionally. She holds things inside I’m sure she doesn’t even know the meaning of, maybe. And Mac, as much as he’s “live and let live,” might never understand why she’s holding part of herself back; the guy lives so openly and so whole-heartedly he has none of that reserve, can’t understand how someone could, especially with someone she loves. 

I understand secrets—I’ve had my own share—but I just wish I could reach with both hands inside that girl, lance those wounds I know are festering hidden, unlooked for, untended; unlock the door that holds in the screams I know are trapped there, left over from things she’s shoved deep inside without wiping the hurt and poison off first. 

I could be wrong about all this though. It’s just speculation. After all, what else have I got to do? 

* * * 

Monday mornings come at you hard. It doesn’t seem to matter how prepared you feel for the shock of one when you go to bed Sunday night. They always manage to find some way to bite you in the ass. 

This morning it’s completely my fault though. I smoked again before I went to bed, knowing over half the times I do that I wake up with a raging headache. This is, of course, one of those mornings, and I lay in bed alone till almost 7:45, knowing full well I’ve got to be at work by 8:30, but I seem to be still slightly stoned and I don’t want to move. The shower doesn’t’ help, but only makes my teeth chatter and knives slash at my brain as I step out of the hot steam onto the frigid floor. 

I’m heading to the door, head down and glaring at my shoes, when Mari intercepts me. “Hey,” she says, twining her arms around my neck and gives me the sort of kiss that brings on an immediate hardening of the cock, and then slips away like a tendril of smoke, gone before I can open my eyes again. I swallow hard, blink, then slam out the door. 

Isn’t that just the way? 

Despite the rough start though the day goes by quickly, and I even have a sort of break through at lunch. 

Another teller, Amber, has her lunch at the same time I do today, and we go to the Starbucks across the street together. A couple coworkers have teased me about Amber before, the usual “she wants you” sort of thing, but I never really realized it was true till today. 

We’re sitting inside, me with my usual black coffee and bagel, and she consuming something large and milky and sugary they like to call coffee, a sandwich and a pastry. She eats with big bites but neatly, and I think all that must be going directly to her chest, because there’s no flesh anywhere else. She’s a toothpick with D-cup breasts. 

She’s talking at me, batting her long lashes at me, and as she waits for a response I realize I haven’t heard a word, lost in contemplating the way those breasts rub against the soft cotton of her oxford shirt, and wondering if she has to reinforce the buttons that strain to keep closed the cloth over that abundance with extra thread. Just because I’m in love doesn’t mean I’m blind and numb. 

“Uh, huh?” 

She laughs at me, inadvertently (or is it?) pressing those globular mounds against the table as she leans across to smack my shoulder. I flinch. 

“Where was your mind Matt?” She winks at me. She knows. I just shake my head and tear another piece off my bagel with my teeth. 

“I asked if you work out a lot.” 

I just stare at her as she scoots her chair a couple feet closer to mine around the round table top and grips my bicep with her small hand. Well, that’s blatant, I think, looking down at it. “Uh, sometimes.” I gather up my napkins and stand, shrugging her off in the process. “Smoke time.” 

She reminds me at that moment too much of the girls in college, the vipers who started out as sad-eyed little dolls who just wanted to be loved, gullible little idiots who think every guy who kisses them means all the lied he hands her in exchange for each piece of clothing he talks her into removing. Eventually the little girls figure it out, grow a layer of hard armor over soft skin and claws and fangs to go with that, become the hunters to avoid being the prey. I wonder absently how many of those vipers I helped create. 

“Were you in a sorority in college?” I ask her, leaning against the building and holding flam to the tip of my cigarette. 

She looks confused, of course. I often have that effect on people, forgetting they can’t hear my internal dialogue. “No,” she says, “I went to community college. She wraps her arms around her torso like she’s cold, but it’s 70 degrees out now and she can’t be. She’s just pressing her breasts together so I can see cleavage, but I know that trick bitch. Her forehead crinkles under blonde bangs in an inquiring frown, and I realize I’m glaring at them—her breasts—so I smile, and reassured I guess, she smiles back. But I shouldn’t have smiled. 

“I was wondering if you wanted to go out sometime,” she says, looking up at me with those big, dumb, doe eyes of hers. “I’ve wanted to ask you, like, forever, but I don’t usually ask guys out, you know?” 

Right, the unspoken Usually they ask me, what’s wrong with you? hangs in the air. 

“Like a date?” I ask. 

“Yes.” She smiles at me encouragingly, like a first grade teacher at a particularly slow student who finally seems to get it. “Like a date.” 

“Sorry, no.” 

“What?” I probably could knock her over with a fingertip she looks that surprised. 

“No.” I light another cigarette and smile at her. “Sorry.” 

I guess I’ve never talked about my love life. Never once mentioned my roommates, or what they are to me. I’ve always been a private person, but I realize I’ve taken private to a whole new level. The pressure to retain my privacy in certain matters—matters that, in the course of a year, have consumed my entire life and person—has rendered me practically silent. And I suppose it’s the sudden claustrophobic pressure of that realization that inspires my response to her inevitable inquiry: “You have a girlfriend?” 

“And a boyfriend.” Yeah, I said it. I almost can’t believe it, but I said it. 

“What? And?!” 

“One of each,” I say, taking a deep drag, my knees suddenly weak at that first voluntary revelation. 

Then she laughs. “Matt, if you don’t want to go out with me just say so. You don’t have to make up excuses. That was a good one though. Never heard that before.” 

Slowly, I turn my head to look at her, feel my lips curve up. Huh. I could back out now, I know, shrug it off and go along, pretend it was a joke, a bad excuse to avoid a girl I don’t want, but I think then it’s such a weight gone off me—a load I never even realized I was carrying it came on so slowly over the years—and I don’t want to pick it up again. It’s a strange feeling to have it off my chest, but a feeling I want to prolong, examine. 

So, “I’m not joking,” I tell her. “I’ve been with my boyfriend almost a year and a half, and we’ve had our girl with us just about a year. We’re very happy together.” I feel the half-lie is justified, because half the time we are happy, or at least I am. 

 

“Oh. My. Gosh.” Each word is punctuated as she examines my face. “You’re not. Joking.” She looks at me like I’m a zoo animal, a strange sort of creature she’s never seen before. “Why didn’t you ever say anything? Or am I the only one who doesn’t know and everyone was secretly laughing at me behind my back while I made an idiot of myself flirting with you?” 

I feel a little bit bad then, but not too badly. “Uh, no, it’s not something I generally share, mostly I suppose because I expect people might look at me like I’m some kind of freak, like, for instance, you are now.” I notice she begins examining a loose thread on her sleeve very carefully at that. “So no, no one was laughing at you. I didn’t actually realize you were flirting with me until today.” I pause to light another cigarette. “Mac—uh, my boyfriend says I’m a little dense about stuff like that sometimes.” I look at my watch. We’ve got about 15 minutes of break left and I wonder if she’s going to use it to go back to the bank and tell the whole world what a freak I am. 

“I didn’t mean to look at you like you were a freak. I’m sorry, I don’t think you’re a freak.” She looks at my cigarette. “Can I bum one of those?” 

I hand one over, light it for her. 

“Thanks. It’s just you don’t really look like…” 

“A sexual deviant? A half-faggot?” 

“No! I mean you like the friggin’ boy-next-door type, you know? And it sounds like you really love your…well, lovers. I mean, I could see it in your face when you were talking about how long you’ve been together.” She picks at that stupid thread on her sleeve again. “I think that’s really sweet.” She looks up and smiles at me sort of impishly, regaining her equilibrium. “And your girlfriend’s really lucky. I wish I had two boyfriends.” 

I refrain from rolling my eyes, barely. 

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want,” she says, but I know her earnestness is only given in the movement. This kind of gossip is too good to keep quiet. 

“It’s ok,” I say, resigned. “It’s out now.” 

She shakes her head, says with surprising pragmatism, “No. Some of those people in there are way too straight. It’s safer if we just keep this between us.” 

On the other hand, maybe she’s the type who hoards secrets, saving them for future use. Or she could just be a better person than I thought. 

* * * 

On Monday nights, McGee, Paulo and I usually go out for dinner and drinks. It takes some of the sting away from the brutalness of the week’s beginning. Usually we go someplace on Broadway, halfway, for me, between the downtown bank where I work and home. Tonight we’re at the Broadway Grill, and I’m indulging in sweet potato fries and probably too much beer as I tell McGee the story of Amber and my shocking revelation. Then I notice Paulo’s staring at me, his mouth hanging open (thankfully he swallowed first). 

“Oh my gawd. You’re kidding me. You are pulling my leg Matty Munroe.” 

“What?” Oh. I suppose I tend to think of Paulo as sort of an extension of McGee, and I forgot he probably wouldn’t know. He’s not as deviously observant as McGee. So I’ve shocked two people today. 

“Oh my gawd. I thought you three were just roommates. You know chico I have had my suspicions about you and that pretty boy, that’s why I always keep my hands to myself there,” (huh, I guess Paulo is sort of Mac’s type, keeping the Chihuahua boy in mind) “but the girl? I totally thought she was asexual.” He looks at his cosmopolitan for a second or two, then picks it up and downs it. “Oh my gawd.” 

“Honey, Mari is far from asexual,” McGee says. “Mari is practically the definition of sexual deviance. Mari Macy,” he pauses to sip at his scotch, “is a scary, scary girl.” 

“She’s not scary, she’s just misunderstood.” I slather a fry with ketchup and bite half off. 

“Do you understand her?” McGee retorts. 

“No. I don’t try. But I don’t pretend to understand her, or think I do, which would be the definition of misunderstanding here. Wasn’t it Aristotle who said,” I finish the fry in my fingers and wash it down with Guinness, “the wise man admits what he does not know?” 

“Not exactly those words,” McGee says dryly. 

“Of course not. He spoke Greek.” 

“So now you’re a wise guy chico?” Paulo grins at me. 

“Have you thought at all about what I said darling?” McGee rattles the ice in his glass. 

I glare at him. “I wonder which one of you she’s really after?” he’d said the other night, words that have been gnawing at my gut ever since. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says around a small smile. Paulo’s lost interest in our banter and left us for a guy he knows who just came in, so he doesn’t ask what we’re talking about, meaning McGee can speak freely. I watch the little man across the room, willing him to come back with my eyes. 

“Matt, look at me.” McGee snaps his fingers under my nose and I flinch, smack his hand down to the table top. McGee turns his hands under my flat handed hold, so now we’re palm to palm, and he laces his fingers through mine. 

I snatch my hand back. “Don’t do that!” 

“Do what?” A shit-eating grin. Then, “I mean it darling. I know I’m not your mommy, but I think you’re setting yourself up to be hurt. You can’t count on Mari, she’s a ticking time bomb. You can’t count on Mac, because when she goes he’ll go with her, or he’ll fall apart.” 

“Mac’s not like that.” I cross my arms over my chest. “He’s not going anywhere. He’s the most grounded person I know.” McGee’s too right about Mari though. I leave that topic alone. 

“What happened to him during Miss Macy’s meth phase? Answer me that my dear. He was out of the picture like a shot,” McGee counters. 

“He came back.” I stubbornly persist, even though McGee has a point. 

“Yes, he came back, only to latch onto you like a goddamn leach. He was sucking you dry Matt, leaning all his weight on you.” I open my mouth but McGee cuts me off with a raised hand. “I know, he was taking care of you. But don’t you think someone can be cared for to death? Really Matt, remember how he had to know where you were at all times? He didn’t even begin to ease up until Mari was back in the picture. I was afraid he would smother you before she came along and took some of his attention. 

I open my mouth, shut it. Take off my hat, run my hand through my hair, replace it. Pick up my pint glass, set it carefully down again with out drinking. 

“You know I’m right darling.” He leans towards me, the rational manner he wore for his previous, carefully ordered statements replaced by hot intensity. “Matt, you brush it off like I’m joking with you every time I tell you how much I love you, but dear heart, I’m dead serious. I’ve loved you since the first time I laid eyes on you, wondering what on earth a boy like you was doing on the arm of a mess like Mari Macy.” 

“McGee, don’t—“ 

“Shut up darling, let me talk.” 

I shut up. McGee may prance around wearing the gay-man act, but “Though [he] be but little, [he] is fierce.” It’s better to let him rant himself dry while carefully guarding your balls. 

“You may notice,” He says after a deep breath, his eyes almost glowing with heat and locked to mine, “I never take…my little, shall we say, ‘relationships’ very seriously. That doesn’t mean I’m incapable of a serious commitment, it merely signifies there’s been no one I could take seriously. Except you of course Darling. I kick myself daily for being your first…homosexual experience.” 

I wince at the phrasing. Actually, I’m wincing at all of it because I don’t want to hear any of it. But he can take it—my sour expression—as he will. 

“No man is going to stay with the first man he was with—not that he should,” McGee continues. 

“I’m just telling you all this so you’ll understand Matt—understand why I’m prying into your life like this: because I love you dearly and it will kill me to watch you be hurt by this, as you inevitably will; and why I feel I have a right to pry: which is because of how, and how much I love you. So, I’ll say this as well, that I will stand by for you, even if only to see all you’ve set yourself up for finally crash and burn—and I hope you’ll let me help you pick up the pieces when that happens, even if it is only in the role of a dear friend. But you should also know I’m here whenever, for whatever you want me for. You act like you don’t’ know that, or like it’s just a little homo game I’m playing, but darling, I’ve always been dead serious.” 

His muscles relax, and I finally feel free to let my eyes wander (though I don’t, it’s a small relief to know the option’s there now) as his search out Paulo, then he takes a small sip of his drink and looks at me again, that little smile returned to his mouth. “If that changes, I’ll let you know, but it’s been a constant of the past and honestly darling I don’t really see it changing in the future.” 

Have I mentioned McGee’s in law school? He wears a slicker version of the aura of eloquence he always innately spoke and moved with, now honed, fine-toned; the ferret-cum-mongoose I first discerned in him has preened its whiskers and coat, adding aspects of weasel and mink (still all in the family, you’ll notice). He speaks with the refined passion of a born orator, a slick politician. The crafty little guy I first knew is still there, but I can see the layers of maturity he’s acquired. It’s in his speech, his carriage, even his wardrobe and grooming. 

Yet in spite of this new façade my friend wears, I know McGee, know him enough to believe every word he just spoke is sincere. 

Therefore, that sincerity taken in account, I am humbled, flattered, and terrified by his speech. Yet, strangely enough, his words give me an oddly warm sense of security, like being held safe in a firm grip. 

Or maybe that warmth is simply the several pints of beer coursing through my bloodstream. 

“Matt?” McGee looks at the glass I’ve just placed empty with the careful precision of a drunk who’s just realized he’s no longer sober in the center of my coaster. “How many is that? Please tell me it’s only three.” 

“Five…six?” I shake my head, shrug. The tab will tell the tale. 

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” 

“McGee, I heard, comprehended, and am currently digesting every one of your words.” 

The waiter (a cast-off of McGee’s who’s recent enough to still have false hopes in that direction) sidles up to the table, picks up my empty glass and raises a questioning brow. I wish I could do that one eyebrow thing. Mari and Mac both can, and because I can’t I think I sometimes lose ground in arguments. Anyway, I nod in assent. 

“Oh no he doesn’t. Darling, that’s enough.” 

“Johnny,” the waiter says, “your bodyguard could drink enough to kill a pony and still walk out of here on his own feet. I’ve seen it.” 

The wide circle of acquaintances of Paulo and McGee has an annoying habit of referring to me as “the bodyguard.” I’m not that intimidating or that big—I think I’ve said before I’m only around 6’4—but I still kind of dwarf Paulo and McGee. I think the deal is they can’t figure out what I’m hanging around for. I’ve been through the whole stereotype bit here (still haven’t got it worked out in my head yet but I’ve sort of tried not to think about it, like Mac suggested), and so I hate to say this, but I don’t act as gay as they do. And the type-casting’s not solely on my part, because I’m pretty sure they’ve labeled me hopelessly straight, except the few veterans of Paulo and McGee’s sphere who know I’m not, because they’ve seen me letting men climb all over me, but can’t quite figure what’s up with me now. It’s been a long time since I so much as made out with a random guy, since before April (the girl, not the month) at least, so almost two years. In the ever-changing social life of my two friends, that’s an eternity. People have left school, left town, had changes of lifestyle or changes of heart. And also, like I said, though I’m not as close-mouthed as Mari—I’ll talk about random topics like politics or entertainment or whatever—I don’t really talk about myself. 

For the most part, most of them, like our waiter tonight, have accepted me as a new and strange sort of fag-hag-slash-protector-of-the-small (I can’t help making jokes, honestly they’re little). New arrivals to the group learn from a polite rebuff from yours truly I’m not for sale, or more often get that information from whispers and asides (i.e. gossip) that circulate. 

“Johnny, it says right here on my pad I’ve only brought him four beers. He should be totally fine for another if he wants one.” 

McGee’s face is set. If there was any chance before of him picking this guy up again, that chance is now toast and the poor fool doesn’t even know it. “He said five or six. If he can’t even count he—“ 

“If you both don’t shut the fuck up I’m going to need something stronger than a fucking Guinness. You only counted three, remember McGee? Do I need to run through a couple tongue twisters for you?” (That was McGee’s way, in the old days of partying, of determining if he was too drunk to make an intelligent decision about going to bed with someone. …And by the waiter’s blush, he apparently still uses it for something I guess.) 

“Fine,” McGee says in a snippy tone so much like my mother uses sometimes I reach across the table and affectionately ruffle up his perfect coif, which of course pisses him off further and causes the waiter’s face to turn a deeper shade of red. Oops, jealousy? 

“Uh, the same?” he asks me. 

“Actually, a Jack and Coke would be nice.” I pull out my pack of cigarettes and watch the waiter flounce off. “He’s got a nice ass,” I say. “What was wrong with that one?” I wonder what brought on the biting tone to my voice. I’m not bitter about anything, so why do I sound like it? 

McGee’s eyes also follow the derriere in question. “Too shy in bed. He only came out like, last year, and had a boyfriend for almost all of that. The poor dear’s really too new at this for my taste. I don’t prey on the innocent.” 

“Oh really?” 

He looks back at me—is that pink I see staining the cheeks of the unshakable McGee? 

“You were the one exception Matt,” he says, “and I’ve already gone on at length this evening about how that turned out.” 

“So you’re saying if you, oh, induct another ‘innocent’ you’re afraid you’ll fall in love with him too?” 

“No, I’m saying you’re the exception because you managed to skew my judgment darling.” He takes momentary refuge in the coffee the (spurned) waiter brings him, so I taste my Jack and Coke, the pleasant sharp-sweet taste mingling with the lingering tobacco on my tongue. The waiter is loitering hopefully, but McGee shoos him away with a look. “Matt, you sound like you haven’t taken a word I’ve said all night in any seriousness. I didn’t fall in love with you because of that. I saw something in you the night I met you, something that caused me to ignore all my own rules, and every time I’ve seen you, spoken to you since only confirms and adds to everything I was attracted to at first.” 

I sigh deeply. It’s moments like these I wonder if smoking three cigarettes at once would make me feel any better. If anything, the novelty of it, and deciphering the semantics of it, would take my mind off the difficulties at hand. 

He’d mentioned twice at least now that first night we’d met, and that random party Mari dragged me to. Who could have guessed the cataclysmic impact of going out on a whim on a random Saturday night? 

I wonder then if anyone but McGee, in all his charisma and persuasive, look-at-me charm, could have torn away that last shred of homophobic reserve (not meaning I was scared of homos, obviously, but scared of being one) and ushered me into a new realm that eventually allowed me to discover I could fall irrevocably in love with my best friend. And I think by the look in McGee’s eyes he knew that had shot him in the foot. Yet it was a catch 22, because if he hadn’t, he would never have had a chance anyway. 

“McGee—John. I know you meant every word of that lovely speech. I just don’t know what you want me to say. For what it’s worth, I love you too—like a good friend. And you know I’ve always got your back too. Other than that, I don’t know why you’re telling me all this. It’s not like I can do anything about it.” I shift in my seat, lean forward, elbows on the table. “And for what it’s worth, I know you’re mostly right about all that stuff you said about Mari and Mac. But I can’t leave, you know that. I have to keep trying to make this work until…” Until what? I don’t—won’t—go there. He doesn’t push it either, just nods, sips coffee, leans back in his chair. “I understand. But I had to try too.” 

“It’s cool.” I down my drink in a last gulp, stub out my cigarette. 

“It’s late,” McGee says. “I’ll drive you home.” 

We pay our respective tabs and drag Paulo away from the guy he was flirting with. 

I have McGee drop me off at the convenience store a few blocks away from my house, saying I”ll walk the rest of the way home. I need more cigarettes and the walk will clear my head. 

I pick up the cigarettes and a case of Coors, because I have a feeling sleep’s going to need a little more help than what I’ve already given it tonight. 

* * * 

It’s funny, the different definitions we have for “late.” I remember when I was small, and 9 p.m. was late. I couldn’t fathom myself or anyone staying up till midnight (besides, why would anyone want to? That’s when the monsters come out). I remember when midnight was early (perhaps when I was a monster?) and couldn’t fathom going to bed before that time. 

Now midnight’s relatively late again, for someone who should be awake by 7:30 and coherent by 8:30 a.m., and that’s what time it is now. After an exceptionally graceful fumble I manage to let myself in, click shut the storm door behind me, pause just inside, before dead-bolting the big door, senses alert (and way too sober after what I had to drink). Usually I can sense who’s home and where they are inside the house, even if they’re sleeping. It’s kind of uncanny actually—used to freak my moms out—and I can only do it with people I’m exceptionally close to. But I think I might be too drunk, for all that, because my body’s telling me there’s no one in the house. That can’t be right, Mac’s always in bed at this time since he’s up before dawn. I shake my head violently as if that’s going to fix my malfunctioning senses, carry the case of beer to the kitchen. 

Ah, there he is, out on the back deck. Not in the house, I was right. The way the light shines makes him a black Mac-shaped cutout to my eyes, leaning against a rail. He’s probably had another nightmare, went out for a smoke. So I break open the case, pull out two bottles and join him. I guess I’m too quiet, or he’s too lost in thought, because he jumps about a foot when my breath stirs his hair. The disappointment in his eyes when he turns is enough to let me know he wanted someone else, though he covers it with a weak grin and a light punch to my shoulder. “Don’t do that.” 

He twists open the beer I hand him and takes a long swallow, then grimacing looks at the label. “Thanks. I think." 

“Beer snob. Bad dream wake you?” 

“No. I’ve been awake. I actually thought you were Mari. I haven’t seen her all day.” 

The beer tastes more sour than it should, and I have a hard time swallowing for a moment. Mac is usually home by 2 p.m. the days he works, and as far as I know Mari always waits for him. By the time I get home between 6 and 7 p.m. she’s usually long gone to wherever she goes—the library, a café, whatever. Mac is usually about to head for bed, and Mari (even when she’s her usual self) is hardly ever home till I’m in bed myself. I don’t think about it much, it wouldn’t inspire any productive emotions, but right now I can’t keep it from my mind—that, or wondering what they do every afternoon without me. I’m remembering what McGee said, about how when Mari came into us she took some of the weight off me. I’m thinking right now I miss that weight though. I miss being taken care of, even smothered. I miss him always asking me where I’m going, where I’ve been gone for so long, even if it’s only a five minute trip to the bathroom. He hasn’t even asked where I’ve been tonight, I think, indignant. Although Monday nights with McGee and Paulo are habit, he used to ask anyway, to get the specifics—where we went, who I talked to and what about, even what I ate. I used to tease him by asking him I he wanted to know how many times I got up to take a piss too, he was that thorough in his interrogation. Always a light sleepier, he’d wake when the waterbed roiled under my weight, roll over and ask his multitude of questions until we drifted off together. 

‘Matty! Matt!” 

I’ve spaced out again, in the usual way. How long has he been trying to get my attention? Now will he ask? 

“Have you seen Mari today?” 

Nope. “No, not since I left this morning.” I remember that obnoxious kiss, calculated to stir, to arouse, when she knew I was late again. 

“She was awake then? She was awake when I left. I don’t think she slept again…” 

The worry writ plain on his face shakes me out of my musings. I’m being selfish. Mac thinks, obviously, she’s lapsed into using again. For the first time he’s actually confronting that possibility, and I set my beer down with a determined thunk on the deck railing. If he’s going to finally do this, I need to be all the way there for him. I pull a cigarette out of my jacket pocket, hopeful the nicotine will do something to clear the remaining alcohol fuzz from my brain. 

“Matt...” His voice catches, and he grabs the hand holding my lighter. “Are you listening?” 

“Hey, I’m here,” I say, wanting to be irritated with him but I can’t be. I pull his head in to cradle against my shoulder and the rest of him sort of melts into me. He feels small there, and I know I’ve got no words, no idea what to tell him. When you’ve got nothing to say, I guess it’s best to say nothing, and maybe he doesn’t need words anyway. 

His chest is heaving now, and his shoulders, and my jacket’s going to be a snotty mess after this. I hate it when he cries, but if he’s got to, I guess all over me is a better place than most. 

Yeah, Mac thinks she’s back at the meth, etc., but do I? It seems different than the last time. She seemed more lost then, a little crazier, on the precipice of violence. She never worked. She didn’t take care of herself—her hair, her clothes, her body. She and her surroundings were filthy. 

Now she’s lost, but it’s more like lost in thought. Like she got lost in a thought one day (that morning, that phone call?) and she’s been there ever since. None of the other signs are there—no marks, no bruises, no bloody Kleenexes—as far as I can see (though I admit it’s been a bit since I’ve seen her any less than fully clothed). Not that any of this means she’s still clean, but if anything, it indicates it’s not as bad as before. 

After a while, he wipes his face on the back of his bare arm and leans against me, his back to my chest. “Sorry ‘bout that.” 

“Hey, that’s what I’m here for. That’s been building up for a while anyway, hasn’t it?” 

He cranes his neck to look up at me, dark eyes rimmed pink in the gleam of light that falls across his face from the kitchen window. “Yeah, yeah I guess so.” He heaves a shuddering breath, and I wrap my arms around his bare torso. The days are warmer, but the nights are still cold. 

“It’s just you’re always picking up the pieces after us, y’know? All the little messes Mar and I make, all the shit we can’t handle, and here’s more, another fuckin’ huge mess it looks like I’m gonna dump in your lap ‘cause I dunno what to do with it.” His hand had crept into my coat pocket, and now he lights the stolen cigarette, and another he hands back to me. 

“What are you talking about?” I say. “Mar’s a slob, but you’re like punk-rock Donna Reed.” I make light, but I know what he’s talking about. 

His free hand grips a fistful of my jacket sleeve, and I blink as his sudden exhalation of smoke stings my eyes. “That’s not what I mean,” he says, like I’ve insulted his intelligence or something. “Even if Mari doesn’t, I do notice you’re always fixing shit for us. Like how you’re always reading over her contracts and stuff to be sure she doesn’t sign her life away on her next book, or how for like, years now you’ve helped me figure out my money and shit, helped me get to France and helped me invest it and stuff, and you fix everything that’s broken, like my car last month and the toilet the other day, and you pay all the bills and—fuck Matty. Yeah, I cook and clean and stuff but...” 

I feel like shit for having mad that Donna Reed remark there, bury my face in his hair. “Hey, I—“ 

“Remember when,” he cuts me off, “well, ‘member the first time I came to you about Mari, before, well, you know.” 

“Yeah?” ?” I think back—shit, two years—recall Mac, just like now, freaking out over Mari. I also remember how well I “fixed” things then. “Uh, Mac, I made things worse that time.” 

”Not really,” he says, nestling his head more firmly under my chin. It tickles, and I smile because of that, smooth his hair down with an unsteady hand. “She told me once that when you laid it all out like that, told her what a brain-dead bitch she turned into, that it was the first time she saw it that way. The first reality check anyone ever gave her, and really like, the only major one she got, except I guess when I finally stopped writing to her, and she also said like, every time she saw you afterward you just gave her this look, she said—you never told me you saw her so often.” 

“I didn’t. Anyway, I never said a word to her if I did.” 

“Yeah, I guess I figured. 

“Why are we talking about this anyway?” I run my thumbs over his biceps—goose-bumpy, and I want to go inside, we’re supposed to be talking about Mari, not about Mari and me, which is a topic I don’t really care to contemplate right now. It’s too complicated, and the place it hits is too tender right now. I’ve thought about it enough, and I’m trying to put it away for the night. 

“Well, I brought up that day ‘cause…well, you ‘member how I wasn’t just worried about, like, Mari using and stuff but…” I can feel his cheeks and ears heat up, and rub my own cold cheek against his, trying to figure out what the hell he’s talking about. Then I freeze, smiling a little, realizing what it must be. That was around the time Mac first discovered Mari’s penchant for rough sex—bondage and sado-masochism, more specifically—and that discover had not only embarrassed him and freaked him out, but confused him I think. He doesn’t really understand sex that’s not somewhat akin to making love. I, however, had known about that tendency of Mari’s since it first reared its head, a lot more than two years ago. 

Mac can feel the curve of my lips and the shift of my cheek muscles though, our faces being so close, and he jerks away turning to glare at me accusingly. “Are you laughing at me?” 

I pull him roughly back against my chest. “If you go that far away you’re gonna freeze,” I say, a bit brusquely, perhaps not wanting to admit it’s been such a long time since I’ve held him like this I’m not ready to let go yet, haven’t got my fill. 

“It’s just…I don’t get it,” he says into my neck. “You know I don’t. So do you think that might be it? I know you don’t think she’s doing meth again, I can tell in your face.” His speech quickens. “I mean, I guess I could try, but I wouldn’t like it. Uh uh. But if that’s what it takes...I mean, you think? We just have normal sex. Maybe she’s bored, right? Have you ever... You are laughing at me!” He pushes me away with both hands, glares darkly at me, but I can’t hold it back, I am laughing. 

“No not—“ I catch my breath. “It’s just funny. I mean, what percentage of the general population thinks a threesome is normal sex? I bet most people think that’s pretty kinky, Macs.” 

He tries to keep glaring at me, but he can’t. He grins, and I wrap an arm around his shoulder, pulling him in again. “I really don’t think that’s what’s wrong. I’m not blind, I know something’s up, but I don’t think it’s as bad as you imagine. She’s still working, right? How often do you see her without her laptop these days?” 

Mac’s brow wrinkles as he considers this, and then he sighs, a touch of relief softening his features. “You’re right. I’ve been so worried about the weird shit I didn’t notice that. Maybe just a deadline she’s behind or whatever?” 

I doubt that, the phone call from her mother itching at the back of my mind, but I nod, not wanting to disturb the small peace of mind I’ve just given him. “Come inside. I’m wearing a jacket and I’m cold. Your nipples are turning purple.” 

He looks down and laughs, leans into me. “Thanks for listening to me baby. I—“ 

“Don’t—“ 

“Call you baby, yeah yeah yeah.” 

“Yeah. C’mon. I’ll make you some hot chocolate and you can get a couple hours of sleep.” 

He shudders. “I’ll make it, thanks. I don’ really like scorched milk.” 

I cuff him lightly upside the head, and we go inside. 

* * * 

By 1:30 a.m. he’s curled up next to me. It’s been too long since we slept like this, and I lie awake, almost too warm from his body heat, but I don’t want to move. I run my thumb over that tattoo on the underside of his forearm, the small rendition of the browning and the three Ms inked there. 

Like I told McGee, for better or worse I’m in this thing, but I wish I could fix this for them. I never realized until tonight, till he said it, how I have that tendency, to go around trying to fix things for everyone, but I guess it’s true. And maybe it’s to compensate for all the things I can’t do jack shit about. 

Lying there, feeling the slow rise and fall of his chest under my hand, watching the shadows on the wall, I wish Mac hadn’t picked tonight to bring all this up. After all that crap McGee dredged up, I don’t need to lay here awake thinking about it. Inevitably, I’m going to pair it all up with Mac’s shit, and it’s going to keep me up until it’s too late to even try to sleep, and I’m going to be in a piss-ass nasty mood tomorrow morning and probably through the day. What I really needed was to down half that case I bought and get some sleep, who the hell cares if I would have been hung-over all Tuesday. It might have even been a legit reason to call in sick, if I couldn’t stop vomiting in the morning. And then maybe Mac would have come home and taken care of me like he used to, got me 7-Up with a straw and made chicken soup with soda crackers or something... 

I sigh, shift around looking for a cool spot on the sheets, and he presses his face into the hollow of my neck, shifts again to let his head lie on my chest, throws an arm and a leg over me, pinning me down. Geeze, I’m not going anywhere. 

Sometimes I think I’m a lot more gay than Mac is. I mean, yeah, he’s the emotional one, always talking about his feelings, almost girl-romantic and he’s not afraid to cry. He was the first of us to actually date someone of the same sex, but sometimes I think that was just because he couldn’t have the girl he wanted. I mean, Mari is his goddess. She has been since she decided to take him under her wing at that first rifle club meeting almost a decade ago. Every woman he’s ever dated has just been a Mari-substitute. Either they looked almost eerily like her, like he was trying to find a (somewhat imperfect) match, or they’re so obviously different in almost every way it was clear he was trying to get as far from Mari as possible, perhaps defiant, perhaps trying to forget. And maybe, I think, maybe that’s why the men. If he couldn’t have his perfect woman, better not to have a woman at all. 

But then where do I fit in? He said he wanted me as well, again, as with Mari, almost from the start. So why doesn’t he act like it now? Maybe I make it too easy for him, maybe... 

I look down at his face, his cheek resting still on my chest. His face rarely looks so peaceful and easy in his sleep, rarely looks so peaceful and easy at all, really. I brush his hair back and kiss his forehead. 

Maybe I just think too much.


	9. Chapter 9

Have you ever wondered what you’re capable of? I mean really. Movies and books tell stories of people going to extraordinary lengths, surviving famines and riots and wars, “courage under fire”-type stuff. Could you rescue someone from a burning building? Could you remain calm in the face of an armed robbery? Perhaps more to the point, could you commit an armed robbery? Kill someone? With a gun, with a knife or a heavy blunt object, your bare hands? Could you kill yourself? 

Sometimes I wonder what I could do, would do under pressure. Sure, Blockbuster Video’s shelves are stuffed with depictions of people doing stuff like that. Some are even “based on actual events” as much as Hollywood could probably never attempt such a thing and actually get it right. But even the things that happen in real life, things you see on the news or read about in the paper, those are only a few people out of a million doing these extraordinary things. Only a small percentage of this world’s population is made up of real heroes, or true psychopaths. The rest of us are only occasionally brave or slightly crazy. 

Still, you never know. If pressed to your limits, could you become part of that small percentage? Could I? Sometimes I wonder. 

From the age of 14, I’ve known how to use a gun. By now, I have amassed almost a frightening store of weapons knowledge (almost all second hand of course, mostly via Mari and the crazy hicks I went to high school with), and I can out-shoot almost any civilian, and a good portion of non-civilians—military personnel, law enforcement officers—as well, I’ve found over the years. Mac can out shoot me about half the time, and Mari always. Most of the time I don’t consider this a bad or a good thing. It just is. But like I said, sometimes I wonder, and not just about myself. What are we, each of us, capable of? 

* * * 

It’s 5 a.m. and I’m alone in the house. Mac left for work after about two hours of sleep, yawing and dragging his feet all the way to the door, and Mari never came home. I never did fall asleep, like I expected I wouldn’t. 

Now I sit in my workroom, where I took refuge after Mac left. Partly it’s the small, cunning knife in my hand that brings these thoughts to mind, though 5 a.m. of a sleepless night often causes people to think strange things. It could also be the roughly-rendered figure in my hands. 

When I first started carving, in my early teens, I carved simple things, useful things like wooden kitchen utensils, or the usual stuff like a ball inside a cage, wooden chains, gun-shaped rubber-band shooters or pea-shooters or potato guns. But it wasn’t long, taking into account my friends and my hobbies, before these wooden guns became more intricate, more realistically rendered: a near-exact copy of an old gunslinger-type six-shooter I sketched from one I saw in a museum and then copied in wood, fancy scroll-work and all; a tiny rendition of Mari’s 12-gauge, attached to a metal loop, a key chain for her. Then, of course, came the people with guns, Hansel Hersche who owns the hunting and fishing supply store in Onalaska with his old rifle; Mr. Jenks, who lived next to Mac’s mom in Mossyrock, from an old black-and-white World War II photo he let me borrow. And of course Mac and Mari. 

This one, in my hands, is Mari yet again, about as big as my hand and worked out in ash, pale like the like the girl herself. She's squatting, chin in her hands, quiet and still in contemplation. Perhaps when I'm done with it, I'll put it outside, in some place it won't be stolen, or accidentally kicked and broken, but somewhere the weather can still reach it. The wind and rain will wear it then, turn the wood a light gray, and blur the sharp features a bit, crating a wooden metaphor for my own mental image of her: a girl made of smoke ~ ephemeral, elusive, yet clinging; soft and stinging all at once. Smoke is one of those two-fold things ~ it can cure, to preserve food, it can make you high; if you take in too much it can kill you. It can smell wonderful, fresh from the tip of a cigarette or curling up from a pipe, crisp and comforting like burning autumn waste. It can smell rank, stale, like exhaust from a tailpipe, or death and decay. 

The Mari in my hands surprises me, like they always do, how real it seems, as if any moment the small Mari I hold will rise from her crouched, pondering position to yawn and stretch, reach into the breast pocket of her jacket for her Zippo. It's at this point in my work I wonder at myself, and kind of scare myself every time. It's the point at which a piece becomes alive, is its own self, rather than a hunk of wood I'm training with hands and knives and files to become something other. If a piece is right, if it becomes, almost, what it was meant to be, I'm always afraid to finish it. I have to steel myself for the final touches and polishing off, almost too awed by what I've done to finish doing it. I'm at that point now, cradling Mari in cupped palms and stroking fingers, holding my own breath waiting for her to breathe, when I'm disturbed from my reverie. I'm aware, now, of sounds from upstairs, and realize I've been hearing them for a few minutes, unregistered: small skittering sounds, like mice, or Mari ~ the other Mari, who's flesh not wood, who's 5'7" tall, not 5 inches. These are the sorts of noises Mari makes when she's trying to be quiet ~ or, more specifically, when she's trying to be quiet under the influence of some intoxicant. Sober she can be more silent than a dust bunny. 

I take a breath and set my work aside, climbing the basement steps slowly. I feel like an old man for some reason, creaky and achy and well-used. There's some anger too, finally breaking through the confusion and my deliberate avoidance of the issue of Mari's recent strangeness. 

Opening the basement door, the kitchen is still dim, faintest dawn light comes through the window, mingling with the artificial light of the stove hood's 30-watt bulb. Before rounding the corner into the kitchen proper, I hear the low murmuring rumble of a male voice, unfamiliar, and Mari's more carrying reply: "Thanks for the ride. I'll see you later." I freeze, pull the door back towards me, waiting in the shadowy stairway as the male's footsteps sound past me on the hardwood floors, echoing through the early morning silence of the dining and living rooms, the creak and click of the front door and the metallic bang of the screen. As far-fetched as it sounds, I can actually feel Mari's hesitation, then I hear her hurried footsteps tapping along the man's pathway. "Wait!" she calls in a harsh whisper, out the front door. The screen bangs again behind her, footsteps sound back through the house, more muffled going up the carpeted attic stairs. Several long heartbeats past, pounding hard in my ears. I am flat against the wall behind the door, breathing quietly, careful measured breaths through my nostrils. She's coming back down the stairs. "Matt?" she calls in the same harsh whisper. Why does she still whisper if she knows I'm not asleep in bed? Again, "Matt?" I imagine her loose shrug, unconsciously mimicking Mac, as I hear her leave, hear the deadbolt snick into place, hear the rough sound of a badly maintained engine rev to life and fade down the street. I hear the sound of cotton snagging on unfinished wood slats as I slide down the wall to sit breathless at the top of the basement staircase. I don't know why I didn't show myself. It wasn't as if I was intentionally spying ~ at least, not premeditated spying. At the moment I'd heard another man's voice, I felt like an intruder, an interloper. But I couldn't have backed away: classic case of deer-in-headlights syndrome. Is it funny, how while Mac worried about a relapse into a drug habit or a return to sexual fetishism; while I worried about a nervous breakdown or psychological collapse due to a blast from a horrible past in the form of a phone call from her psychotic mother, that what in this moment seems like the trouble with Mari is a very basic case of infidelity? Can it really be something so simple as cheating? How could she be so insensitive, so gauche? I knew though, being Mari, she was never really anything but. She does what she will because she wants to, in her own, Mari way, without realizing whom it will hurt till they lash back at her. 

Taking a few deep breaths, I rise and emerge finally from the stairwell into the kitchen, sit somewhat unsteadily at the table. Is it odd the day after I publicly admit to my unconventional lifestyle (albeit only to a small audience of one, not counting Paulo) my life begins to fall apart? 

I bang my head against the table. "Ok Matt. Jumping to conclusions here." I don't know if that's what's really going on. And it's not as if my life began to "fall apart" this second ~ things have obviously been unstable for a while now. And who can really say it's falling apart? It's just a sneaking feeling... 

I stand, a little unsteadily, and climb upstairs. I'm too stifled by the house's walls to think. I generally do my best thinking in the open air. I toss on a long-sleeved t-shirt, running shorts and cross trainers. I left my rig parked on Broadway last night and if I let it sit much longer I'll find a pretty parking ticket waiting for me. It's a good excuse ~ the best kind, a necessary one ~ to get out of the house. This morning I forgo the iPod though, preferring to be alone with my thoughts. It's already bright outside, and I start jogging at a slow trot due north. 

I'm remembering back to September, when Mari moved in with us. Even though we'd known each other for years, and had been, more or less, a threesome since June, the first month was a little awkward, I recall. I'd felt kind of like both of us, Mac and I, were teenagers testing the limits with their first girlfriend, different than the awkwardness of the winter before, when I was a boy exploring new boundaries in a relationship with another boy, who'd been his best friend. With Mac, it had felt more tentative, less awkward. But more parts to a thing will always make it more complicated. 

Mari had stayed over fairly often those first couple months Mac and I lived alone in this house, shared our bed, our bathroom and our space, but she and her stuff had always gone back to her own space after a night or two. When she moved in after the lease on her place was up, it was like perfecting a balancing act: figuring out where to put her things, finding her her own spaces, working her routine around ours. Would she sleep with us every night? Who gave up his side of the bed? Or would it be like a reprise of the slumber parties we had when we were young? It had always been natural for the three of us to pile up like sleepy puppies and snooze. Would she try to eat meals with us every night, like Mac and I had done when it was just us? 

When Mac and I first moved in to the house on 14th Ave in June, after my graduation, it was still a bit honey moonish. We’d broken past any awkwardness of our relationship’s transition at our old apartment in the U District, so we were able to jump feet first into making our new house a home for each other. Mari, putting all her energy into finishing her last year of school, saw us twice a week at best. A couple neighborhoods apart, Mari without a car, Mac and I each with new jobs, and the commute was a bitch for Mari on the bus and she preferred working her ass off without distractions. 

Mac’s new schedule started early in the morning ~ 3 or 4 a.m. early ~ while mine was a more typical 8 am till 5 or 6 p.m. So he would take a nap in the afternoons when he got home from work, in order to get in enough hours of sleep so he could spend the evening with me when I got home. Sometimes he’d heat us up something he brought home from his current kitchen of residence, and sometimes we’d go out, have dinner, play some pool or darts, but usually we’d just stay home and I’d try to cook for him (usually pasta or breakfast-type stuff, about the extent of my repertoire), and half the time he’d have to rescue me half way through (“For fuck’s sake Matty, you can be such a man in the kitchen. Back away from the stove.” I’d laugh, “What does that make you?” and he’d reply with that haughty lift of his chin, “An artiste. Go set the table”). After dinner, we’d spend the rest of the night taking turns with the remote control, or listening to music in my work room where I carved or sculpted and Mac played around with some canvas and brushes and oils I’d gotten him, because he’d said he wanted to learn to paint. 

I remember one night, sitting behind him on a bench, my legs on either side of him with his hair tickling my nose, trying to teach him the correct way to hold the brush. His fingers gripping the brush loosely, and my hand over his, about to touch the bristles to canvas, I hesitated a moment, reluctant to put a mark on what he’d done. Mac's paintings aren't much different from kindergarten art, yet there’s a certain…style to them, the essence of Mac maybe. The moment was lost when he squirmed against me, causing the usual reaction when an ass is rubbed on that particular piece of anatomy, and I know he did it on purpose, the little shit. I tossed the brush in the jar of turpentine, saying, "Do you want to learn how to paint or not?" 

He leaned back against my chest and shrugged. “Not things, really Matty. I just like the colors and the textures of the paints. If I like it, how does it matter how I hold the brush?” 

I cocked my head, looking at the oil paint mess in front of us. He’s always had an eye for color, and the cool blues and greens were soothing, somehow. I wrapped an arm around his bare chest, saying, “Yeah, well, they sell paintings by Koko the gorilla and Rosie the elephant for thousands. I could just say Mac my monkey painted this and make bank.” 

“Hey!” He twisted around to face me on the bench and ended up sending us both backwards onto the floor, him on top of me, knocking the wind out of me. As I struggled to breathe again, gasping “Christ, Mac!” he leaned down to kiss me, first on the forehead, then on each cheek and my chin. “I just want to be with you Matty. Don’t mind what I paint or how I paint it. Just let me sit by you.” His hands were covered in it ~ paint ~ and grinning, he wiped a streak of it down my nose. 

“I don’t mind what you paint,” I said, the words catching in my throat and roughening my voice as I looked up at him, dark eyes shining, boyish grin curling his lips up at the corners. “Paint as much as you want, whatever the hell you want. Just stay with me.” And I pulled his head down to mine, and he curled his fingers in my hair, and we ended up on the floor of my workroom for quite a while that night, and spent another 45 minutes in the shower after, washing the paint and wood shavings off each other, among other things. And while I’ve kept all his monkey paintings, the one from that night I hung the next day over my work bench. He said it wasn’t finished, and I said I liked it as it was. “The unfinished aspect is just a reminder of how and why it was so abruptly interrupted,” I said, tugging at his bottom lip, which was sticking out in a bit of petulance. Though truthfully, looking at it, I don’t know how anyone could tell it wasn’t finished, when it’s kind of hard to tell what it was supposed to be to start with. He said it was his interpretation of me, and sometimes, at a pause in my work, I’ll look up and wonder at it ~ am I really that cool and calm and fresh? Or is that what he meant at all? 

I tried not to resent when, on the weekend nights when Mari came over, Mac always reigned over the kitchen himself. He’d go all out ~ wine, candles, fancy sauces, the works. After all, I consoled myself, Mari, after all the damage she’d done to herself in the too recent past, needed all the TLC we could give her. And I truly didn’t resent her when she’d smile at me, across the candle-lit dining room table, shyly delighted with the three of us ~ a smile that said ”Here we all are now, together in the right place again.” And I’d smile back, because in that moment ~ Mac urging another helping of mushroom risotto on me, me refilling Mari’s wine glass, Mari throwing an escaped caper at Mac and hitting him right on the chin ~ I knew she was right. And later, sinking into the dark, hotly urgent smokiness of Mari, the warm, liquid smoothness of Mac, I never wanted to be anywhere else, and I’d miss her like crazy for a day or three when she’d disappear for the rest of the week. 

In the fall, when she moved in for good, things changed, almost subtly at first, so I barely noticed until recently. Maybe we got used to each other, as people, as lovers, eventually, inevitably do. Mari holed herself up more and more often in the front bedroom we’d made into her office, Mac stopped napping in the afternoons and usually just ended up falling asleep right around the time I got home. I started going out more often ~ either with McGee on Mondays, or old friends from the frat on the weekends. And I’d come home, half-to-mostly drunk, and fall on the bed ~ me on my side, Mac on his (unless he’d already left for work by the time I dragged my ass home), Mari either sprawled in the middle between us, or, more often lately, passed out on the couch in her work room or not at home at all. 

The morning is darker, grayer, by the time I jog up to my truck. It looks out of place on Broadway, hemmed in by smaller, compact economy coups and sedans, like a tourist from out of town. My head is swimming with Mari’s defection, and despite the run, which was supposed to clear my head, my throat and head ache with unshed tears and sleeplessness, a general feeling of being overwhelmed. Maybe, in spite of the fact I was raised by two women, I’m too much of a guy to let myself cry. As I start up the engine, trying to clear the swimming feeling from my head, the first small drops of rain hit my windshield. 

You know when you can see the black clouds gathering behind you? Breathe in the moisture in the air, as the light fades from gold to pale whitishness. You can out drive it sometimes, as the first tell-tale drops of wet hit the windshield, wipe them away, punch the gas, heading for the clear spot on the horizon. Sometimes, though, the clouds boil up too fast, or you’re not paying attention and the sheet of wet hits you unawares, unprepared. Sometimes, you can’t out drive the rain. 

*** 

I barely shower and dress in time to get back into my truck and race to work. My head is pounding with too many anxious thoughts and a totally sleepless night, I assume, but at work, I’m an obvious wreck. I can’t help thinking about the voice in the kitchen this morning, can’t help hearing, over and over, the clip of Mari’s boots hurrying after him across the hardwood floor. 

“Matt, you’re obviously ill,” the branch manager says from behind me, after she watches me give some poor guy four $50s in answer to the withdrawal slip for $400 shoved under the glass partition. I jerk at her voice ~ I hadn’t heard her sneak up on me. Turning back to the customer, I take back the bills and count out two $100s to add to the pile and carefully place it all in an envelope with his receipt, apologizing profusely. He glares at me and leaves. Unfairly, I think, if that was a woman the customer wouldn’t have been so pissed. Meagan, my boss, closes the window and gently guides me away from my till. 

“Don’t be upset, but I think I'm sending you home. I know you’ve never called in sick before, but calling out when you really are sick is not a crime. Here, do you mind?” she asks, and places the back of her hand against my cheeks and forehead, a concerned look on her face. Meagan can be terrifyingly shark-like on your average work day, but she’s never been anything but fair when it comes to her employees, and according to the framed school portraits on her desk she’s somebody’s mother. “There, see? You’re feverish, you’re shaky, and your eyes are heavy. Open your mouth.” 

“Ahh,” I say, only half-joking, as I comply, almost wishing for my own mothers. 

“There, your glands are swollen too. Get the hell out of here Matt. If you feel like shit tomorrow, call me, then call a damn doctor.” 

Dutifully, I get the hell out. 

At home again, I notice it’s only 10:30 by the clock on the mantle, and I think that can hardly be right. It seems like hours since I got into my truck this morning and headed down town. I barely manage to loosen my tie before falling on the couch and pulling one of Celeste’s horrible attempts at quilting over me. The day’s been too much, too long, since I didn’t actually sleep, so it’s still yesterday too, I think, as I sink into a fevered oblivion. 

Mac shakes me awake at 2pm, and I roll over, open my eyes. 

Sometimes, when you’re ill, you’re violently ill, acutely aware of being ill, with all the accompanying aches and pains and abnormal amounts of disgusting bodily fluids. Other times, it’s more like a bad dream. It begins as a general feeling of unease, that all is not well in your personal bubble. Everyday noises are magnified or diminished, the throat begins to scratch, ears pressurize, your heartbeat sneaks into your head and settles in behind your eyes. Life takes more effort than usual, so maybe you take a nap. You never fully wake up from that, but surface periodically to realize you’re probably dying, as your body is subjected to bouts of intense heat and unrelieveable chills, while a microscopic marching band made up entirely of bent horns and bass drums makes its way through your insides, and in the meanwhile, someone’s turned your head into a lava lamp and stuffed a bunch of burning balloons down your throat. 

“Go ‘way,” I mumble, after the first bit of light hits my freshly opened eyes and stabs like dull knives, and swatting his hands from me, I burrow deeper under the blanket, which is too thin, and I’m shivering. 

“Were you up all night? Did you even make it to work? Are you drunk?” He shakes me again. The accusation in his voice stings. He snatches the quilt away. 

“No! Sick,” I mumble, grabbing for the quilt. “Meagan sent me home.” I manage to tug the quilt from him, wrapping it around my head and shoulders, turning my back to him as I squeeze deeper into the couch cushions. This, unfortunately, means my ass is cold now. I realize I’m still wearing my shoes, and try feebly to kick them off before giving up, the double knotted laces defeating me. Even tightly closed my eyes are burning, and my throat is swollen and hot. 

“Oh baby, I’m sorry,” he sits in the crook of my knees and tries to reach through the blanket to feel my forehead. I don’t even have the energy to fight off the “baby.” I really should give that a rest, it’s just that I don’t tolerate terms of endearment from anyone, even my mothers. Never have, never will. I do have a name, after all. I try to swat his hand away again, but he says “Matthias Marcus Munroe!” in his deepest, sternest voice. I roll over on my back. 

“Why do people always want to feel my forehead when I'm sick? What's the damn point?” I croak. “I mean ~”

“Shut up, you big oaf, and let me get you to bed.” He's still wearing his plain white undershirt that goes under his white lab coat cooking jacket thing, straight black pants and red rubber gardening slides. Ignoring the clown shoes, I focus a bleary gaze on the shirt, which is snug, worn thin, and I can see his nipple rings through it, faint outlines of the tattoos on his shoulders. 

I stumble at the first step of the staircase because I was watching him rather than where I was going, and Mac catches me. I turn around and sit down hard, deciding the journey to bed doesn't seem like a good time right now, look up at him. “You look sexy in clothes,” I decide. “You should wear them more often.”

He looks down at me, exasperation warring with concern, runs a hand through black hair still slightly damp with sweat from the kitchen. “I should call the mommies.” He looks exhausted, and I recall he got as little sleep as I did last night, then worked a full day in a sweltering hot kitchen. Feeling guilty, I gather myself together and haul myself up the stairs as fast as my feet can drag themselves before motivation runs dry, collapse on the bed, shaking. “I dunno what's wrong with me,” I mutter, waiting for everything to stop spinning before trying to unbutton my shirt. “I felt fine last night.” It's karma, I know, for wishing I could call in sick last night and have Mac take care of me. 

He seems disinclined at the moment, his eyes glinting with some sort of unfavorable emotion as he leans down and jerks my tie loose (I know, for a moment, he wants to strangle me with it), pulls open the buttons of my shirt with stiff, jerky motions, ignoring the one that pops off and flies across the room. I scoot back away from him across the bed, and the waves of the water-filled mattress knock me flat on my back, causing a black moment of dizziness and a tingle of nausea at the back of my jaw. Swallowing it down, I say, “We have got to get a real bed.”

“Matt, I'm not playing, stop fucking around.”

I open one eye, regarding him in silence. I wonder, sometimes, how it's possible to love someone so much it hurts, while at the same time be so completely annoyed with him it almost hurts to look at him. I didn't realize I was looking for sympathy and attention till suddenly I'm getting worse than none. “I'm not fucking around. I'd like to be left alone now please,” I finally manage through gritted teeth. Of all the possible retorts running through my head, it's the most polite. The words burn my throat. Deliriously, I wonder if it's because they're a lie. 

“You wanna know what's wrong with you Matty? It's just like before. You get in these self-centered, poor-me ruts, like when you're not moping around or working yourself to death, you're partying your ass off.” He blows hair furiously from his eyes, his hands are on his hips. He began calmly enough, but by “ass off” he's shouting. “You run yourself down, you make yourself sick, and then you expect to be taken care of like the little boy you're acting like!”

“Ok, that's not fair. I'm pretty sure I recall telling you to go away.” As much as I fervently wish he would just cut the crap and take care of me, I do have a certain amount of masculine pride to maintain, besides the fact his accusations are totally ~ ok, mostly ~ bogus. Yeah maybe I haven't been home all that often, but the only hours I'm not working, he's working, or sleeping. With what feels like a herculean effort, I roll off the bed onto my feet, manfully managing not to wobble, shrug out of the shirt and toss it in a corner, yank off my belt. “Look, I'm fine. I'm doing it myself. Just get the hell out of my face, ok?”

His face goes completely blank, his shoulders lift in that Gallic shrug I usually find so endearing but at the moment find wholly irritating, and he turns and leaves without a word. 

Spent, I collapse back onto the bed, telling myself the last thing I need to put up with is Mac's guy.m.s. I want to sink back into fevered oblivion, but my mind won't let his words rest easy there. Las night, there were a couple hours where, in spite of Mari's absence, I felt as close as we used to. Now it's as if he's throwing our recent, more prevalent apartness in my face. I lay with my still-shod feet dangling over the side of the bed and pull the duvet over my head. 

Sometime later I feel a tugging at my feet, then a rush of cold as one foot is relieved from its shoe, then the other. I moan and pull the poor things under the blanket, flop on my side, knees against my chest. I have no idea how long it's been since I made it upstairs, I only know the light coming through the slits in the blinds seems dimmer, more forgiving, and my joints protest sharply when I bend them, like my legs have been straight for too long. The bed rolls with an added weight and my pressure cooker of a head nearly bursts. I shove a piece of duvet up against my mouth to keep from crying out loud. 

“Matt,” he whispers, gently rubbing my back. That feels ok. “Matty baby, sit up.” Because he's being so nice about it, I haul myself up to the hard, stationary edge of the bed, bracing myself with rigid arms while I wait for my head to stop spinning. I think I know how the girl in The Exorcist felt. “Open up.” He drops a pair of capsules on my tongue. “Swallow.” He closes my hands around a freezing cold cup, slick with condensation, and guides a straw to my mouth. I suck down iced orange juice till the straw is only pulling in air. “Now lay back.” Obediently, though gingerly, I sink back into the rolling mattress. First order of business this weekend, price check real beds. He unbuttons my pants and slides them off, muttering something about losing weight again. So my pizza intake's gone down now I'm out of school, I'm not packing in protein for sports, jogging instead of weight lifting. I realize after a moment I didn't actually voice this defense out loud. I open my mouth to do so, then change my mind and decide to just tell the little shit I'm fine and to leave it be, but I feel anything but fine actually, so I just smile at him and tousle his hair when he leans down to tuck the blankets in on all sides. I suppose now's not the time to be an ass. 

“At least I know you haven't smoked a pack and a half today,” he says wryly, crosses his arms at his chest. “So maybe I was a little out of line earlier. But only a little. You are pushing yourself too hard Matt, or you're not here for some other reason.” He sits on the edge of the bed, pulling up his knee to use as a chin rest. 

“What do you mean?” My voice cracks as I force it out my throat, and I wince at the feel of it. “I'm here.”

Mac fishes an ice cube from the now-juiceless glass on the night stand and pops it in my mouth. The coolness runs in rivulets down my burning throat, but now my sinuses feel hot in contrast. “No, you're really not. You're almost as not here as Mar. Even she noticed enough to say something about it before everyone came over Saturday. She said you don't...watch her anymore, I think.”

At first I don't think he heard her right, but he listens to everything that girl said like it's gospel, and then I wonder what the hell she was talking about, but unwilling to use my throat again I don't protest vocally, and silence forces me to think about it. He's right ~ she's right, they're right, whatever. The little things are unconscious now, like getting her bare feet out of a puddle, done without thought. I don't really look at her like I used to, appreciating with both an artist's eye and a lover's heart the little things that pulled my gaze to her before, the way she'd tug on her hair when she was thinking, squint at one of us as if she was trying to convey a thought or emotion without actually having to open her mouth, that graceful, ground eating stride of hers when she's walking someplace with a purpose, the easy familiarity with which she handles either gun or laptop, unwieldy, frightening objects to many but as familiar to Mari as a newborn is to its mother. Lately, I've been avoiding these things, I think. The under-layers of my mind have been so infused with Mac, concentrated on loving him well without fucking up our foundation of friendship. And while I've never worried about the physical aspect of my own relationship with Mari ~ we've managed fine since the first summer I came home from UW, and that in and of itself has never gotten in the way of our friendship ~ I think I've been worried by all the attention Mac spent on her, because I know she's hurt him that way before, that it was partly because of that part of their relationship she's torn him up so badly in the past. Mac is incapable of separating sex and affection. And spending all this mental energy on Mac, I've not thought of Mari as an equal third of us, which means I probably haven't exactly been treating her that way. Remembering her hot, urgent kiss at the door yesterday morning, I sigh. 

“Matty, baby, are you sleeping?”

Because I'm letting him, he's overdoing the “baby.” 

I open my eyes and glare. 

“Sleep.” He kisses me lightly on the forehead and turns to leave. 

“Mac,” I rasp, “it's late.” By the light outside, it's probably around eight o'clock, and he should be in bed. 

“I'm gonna go sleep on the couch. Tossing and turning on that bed all night like I do isn't gonna help you rest and get better.”

“Mac, you didn't sleep last night. I've already slept all day,” I say, half way to sitting up.

“You stay in bed,” he warns. “Sleep.” Something in his tone causes me to fall back on the pillows, uneasy. I don't want to be left alone, but I leave it unsaid. 

At the door, he hesitates. “Did she come home last night?” he asks, too casually. 

“No.” I lie without hesitation, remembrance flooding and tightening my throat. I love her as much as he does, if maybe, I'm beginning to realize, not in quite the same way, but the hard truth, I know now, in this moment, is I love him more than anything, and I will not allow her to hurt him that way. Those panicky stabs of betrayal I felt this morning would be just an echo of what it would do to Mac if it's true. He's softer than we are, me and Mari, deeper in a way. 

At the same time, I remember again what McGee said the other night, that casually aimed dart that's been worrying at my mind (like he fucking meant it to) since he spilled it from his lips: “She's obviously after one of you. That's how these twosome deals work dear. It's human nature to pair off.” I know without a doubt right now he was absolutely right ~ about the last half of his statement. The aim was off. Mari's not the one marking time until a third of the trio is broken off. It's me. 

As Mac flips the light switch and softly shuts the door, I roll over, my back to it, and bury my head in the pillow.


	10. Chapter 10

TEN

I wake up alone, as I often do lately, since Mari's been playing her disappearing game. The sky is just lightening and I can see by the neon green of the old digital alarm clock on my side of the bed it's just past 4am, which means I've slept, on and off, about 17 hours. Mac will be gone now. The aching shivering burning pounding isn't quite as bad as it was, but the awfulness of that has been replaced by a wracking, foul tasting cough and draining sinuses. Returning from an urgent trip to the john (dehydrated from fever or no, you can't sleep the best part of 17 hours without waking up really really having to pee) I spy a rectangle of yellow legal pad paper propped up against the bedside lamp. Mac's pointy scrawl states "Your boss called last night to ask how you were and I told her and she said to stay home today. She seems nice. There’s another carton of juice in the fridge. Drink it."

At first I'm annoyed by the high-handedness of all this, my boyfriend and my boss deciding for me whether I'm well enough to work, but downstairs, dutifully drinking form the carton of orange juice while smoking a cigarette over the kitchen sink, I think it's been months since I had a day to myself, to play hooky, so to speak. I tell myself I don't actually feel that bad, and after a quick shower decide I might as well go for a jog. It's colder outside than I expected, and the early morning light hurts my eyes but I figure I'll warm up as I go, and start at a slow trot down the old cracked concrete slab sidewalk. About a half a block of that, the pavement jolting up through my feet to pound like a sledgehammer into my sinuses, I practically tiptoe to the nearest mini mart, buy any medication that looks even remotely suitable for my symptoms and a donut, which I end up feeding to a hopeful looking squirrel. By the time I'm home I'm ready to crawl, but find no inclination to nap. The normally comfortable couch is too squishy and it irritates me almost as much as the pinging noises when I try to play Asteroids on Mari's old (and miraculously still operable) Atari. So I tread lightly down to the work room, grabbing Mac's carton of orange juice from the fridge on my way at an afterthought, still in my jogging clothes. 

Automatically, I pick up the carving of Mari, which still needs some fine work, sanding and polishing. No varnish for this, I think, rubbing a thumb over miniature cheekbones ~ tempest and temptress, ash and storm, an utter conundrum. I recall how she'd impetuously, meticulously seduced me, just over a year ago, just after she'd found out Mac and I were together ~ were, well, lovers ~ after she'd discovered Mac was no longer seducible, to wrapped up in yours truly. All this a couple years after she and Mac had their own, admittedly somewhat lighter, though no less heartfelt by at least one party in the equation, romantic affair. I think bitterly if I hadn't been so susceptible to her I wouldn't have these doubts and fears and jealousies today. But how could I be anything but? She's Mari, and whatever else I feel about Mari, I love her. I love her not with the deep, steady, intense feelings of comfort, need and home I feel for Mac, but a whiplash quick cycle of almost sweet tenderness and burning hot desire, mixed in with the odd sense of being tuned in to the same station ~ it's the only way I can think to describe it. Mari and I can have a Sunday park bench sit down together and share the same joke, have the same thoughts, have a conversation without saying a single word. It could be why we tend to, sometimes, make each other uncomfortable, that knowledge of how each other's minds work. Silent accusations are just as loud as screaming when you already know what the other person wants to say. The only time Mari every really took me by surprise, besides 24 hours ago, was the one time I ever saw her cry, the morning after the time we slept together, the time we cheated on Mac. She cried because she loved us, she cried because she'd hurt us, and she cried because, as she said, she couldn't help it. It's by that I guess I came by my theories this time yesterday about what's up with Mari. 

I'm on edge, under the fluorescence of the work lights, my shaking hands smooth over and over the chunk of ash in my hands that I've made to live with a face and hands and feet and a name. The need to break free of all this tugs against my nature, which is to stay still, lay back, to go with the flow as it's said. I'm disgusted with all of us: Mari, who's never content; myself, who's too content; and Mac, who is blind. But would I have seen it, if I hadn't been plagued with insomnia yesterday morning? Eventually, maybe, but not so soon.

It's really only deciding what to do about it now. Although it's what I'm always most inclined to do, I can't do nothing. Mac intimated as much last night, and the night before, in our conversations. Maybe the most prudent course would be researching the situation more, talking to Mari, perhaps, to see if my suspicions ~ no, assumptions ~ are true. But fuck it, who the hell talks to Mari? 

Without really thinking about it, I stuff the carving in the pocket of my windbreaker, close up my workroom and find a pair of jeans in the laundry, head out the door. 

The truck sputters a minute before finally coughing, then roaring to life. I think it has a clogged fuel line I need to take care of. The dash says it's a quarter after seven, and I have no idea how over three hours passed since I dragged myself out of bed. It's a good time for it to be though, because by the time I fight my way through traffic to Bellevue, Mac should be on his lunch break. 

Just sitting in the cab of the pickup, wrapped in his familiarity like a blanket, comforts me. I know every cigarette burn in the upholstery, every scratch on the dash, the trick of jiggling the key in the glove box lock just the right way to pry it open or make it stay shut. The cherry pine-tree shaped air freshener wars with the musty scent of a camo rain poncho Mari left in a wet wad in the back of the cab months ago, the stale butt smell of the ash tray, and the faint lingering scent of gun oil. It's a '91 Ford F250 that my moms got me second hand when I turned 16. It belonged to someone's grandfather before it was mine, and seemed barely used at the time, though it was six years old and I remember at first the cab had smelled faintly of wet dog. Since, the cab has taken a beating but the rest of the rig is meticulously maintained, down to the wax job on the cherry red paint I added when I turned 18. It's the last remnant of my redneck childhood and I refuse to give it up, despite Mac constantly pointing out the way it guzzles more gas in a week than his little Hyundai uses in two. We've been through too much together. I lost my virginity in its bed, took my first bong hit in its cab. It carried me back and forth from Seattle to Mossyrock countless times. And at the moment, it's a lot more familiar and comfortable than my empty house. 

Patiently pushing my way through commuter traffic, off the freeway now, I find a pay parking lot and stuff a couple dollars in the appropriate slot, then hands in pockets, head down, trudge under the weak morning sunlight towards Mac's cafe. 

It's a ritzy little place that does breakfast and lunch for the Bellevue white collar snobs. Though Mac's training isn't in pastries, he's more than passable at them (if it's supposed to be edible, the boy can make anything) and he says the experience will round out his resume. I don't go to the front though, but approach the back through the alley. He's sitting on a pile of crates, having a cigarette and a cup of coffee with the busboy and a waitress, and by his face he's surprised to see me, and not totally happy about it. 

"What are you doing here? What's wrong?" he says, hopping from his perch and striding up to meet me. He's wearing a thin white cotton t-shirt like yesterday, and his hair is pulled off his face with a red bandanna. The waitress and busboy look at me with undisguised curiosity. 

"Nothing." 

Mac's arm slips around my waist and he guides me back towards them. I haven't used my voice since yesterday and the word comes out as barely a whisper, raspy. 

"You should be resting," he says, though not as chastisement, merely a statement of fact. He's given up trying to make me behave. 

"I slept for 17 hours." It's still just a whispery rasp, only a little louder than before. I clear my throat, try again. "A person can only sleep so much." There, it's back a bit, not like usual, but audible mostly. 

"This is my boyfriend Matt," Mac says to the other two, arm still around my waist. "Matty, Jasmin and Kevin."

The girl's hair is slicked back from her face in a ballerina bun, and she looks like a dancer, all long thin limbs but strong. Meticulously manicured nails flash bright red as she cups a cigarette to light it. "Huh. Billie won the bet," she says, exhaling two streams of smoke through her nostrils. I remember her from Mac's conversations about work ~ back when we used to talk more. She's a Cornish drop out, who had to quit most of the way through a theater major when she came out to her parents and they refused to pay her tuition. Billie's her girlfriend. Mac hangs out with them sometimes after work, goes out with their group on days off, though they've never been to our house. He says they're a big leery of the mixed crowd, prefer to stay in their own safety zone. Kevin must be a newish addition to the staff, I've never heard of him. 

"What bet?" The question is more from politeness than any curiosity, as I relax just slightly against Mac. I feel ten times better being near him, and the uneasiness inside is dissipating a little, despite the fact he didn't seem as happy to see me as I'd hoped. 

"My girlfriend and I had a bet going on about Mac. I didn't believe he was really gay. I thought he was just talking out his ass, because he wanted to hang out with a bunch of hot lesbians, you now. He doesn't seem like he's really gay anyway."

"He isn't really gay, only about half gay," I deadpan, but she laughs anyway, as if it's a lame excuse for a joke. But Mac's really not gay, and Jasmin seems like the sort, from her spit polished shoes to her perfect coif, who would differentiate. I can't help wondering why Mac's chosen to tell his coworkers he's gay, rather than bi. 

"Whoa, you're a lesbian?" The busboy looks up at Jasmin in awe, finally catching on, his eyes wide. "That is like, so hot."

"Shut up, twerp." He really does look like a twerp. He's about 5'7", gangly and acne scarred, with a small wet mouth and a huge nose. 

"Are you sure you're really his boyfriend, or are you just in with Billie and Mac, trying to help her win the bet?" she queries, looking me over again. “I'm sorry, but if Mac doesn't seem queer, you really really don't seem queer.” She adds, “You look like a flippin' Abercrombie and Fitch poster.”

I figure at this point it might be rude to retort, “queer is as queer does,” and point out that if I'm an Abercrombie and Fitch poster, she's at least a Harper's Bazaar cover. There's also the fact Mac might do me injury if I said such a thing. See, this is the kind of girl Mac used to kick my shins over staring at. Think of it this way: a chocolate lover can pass by a plain bar of Hershey's or a bag of M&Ms no prob. Wave a bar of Godiva under her nose, she might have a problem. Most pretty girls are like M&Ms to me. I love 'em, but I can pass. Shove a girl like Jasmin in my face ~ all graceful limbs and swan neck, bee stung mouth paired with heavy lidded, fuck-you eyes in a handsome, aristocratic face, and what I can tell is probably masses of heavy, smooth, shiny, soft hair confined back in that bun like a tease, so you just want to rip the pins out and bury your hands in it ~ you could say I have a bit of trouble at least not drooling. I've learned the past year or so. I keep my mouth shut. 

“I know, isn't he pretty?” Mac is saying. Mac knows I'm keeping my mouth shut. This is why he's never had Jasmin and Billie over. You don't bring Godiva home to a recovering chocolate addict. He pushes up the bill of my cap, adds, “Some days, lately, he's a little more J. Crew though. It's more believable then.”

I can feel my ears are going pink, so I say, “What did you lose?” straining to an audible decibel, but taking the attention off myself, settling my hat back down over my eyes, because now those high sharp cheekbones of hers are stained pink. 

“Um, it's private.”

Mac lets out a shout of laughter. “If I know Billie, it has something to do with you in black leather and handcuffs, yeah?” and her whole face goes red. The ugly busboy looks like he's about ready to come in his panties. “That's so hot,” he says. 

“Shut up, Kevin,” Mac says, then to me, “Really, what are you doing here?” 

Awkward, now, I shift from foot to foot. “I was bored, so I thought I'd come visit.” Bored isn't precisely the word for it, but it'll do.

“When did you wake up?”

“Around four. Jogging hurt my head, Atari hurt my ears, and I tried working in the basement but I couldn't get into it.” I figure now's not a good time to bring up why I couldn't get into it. I'll tell him eventually, just not right now. It'll just worry him for the rest of his shift if I bring it up now. Besides, his coworkers are shamelessly hanging onto our every word. 

“You look like hell and you sound worse.” Where his voice would normally be heavy with disapproval, it's got something different in the mix. It might be annoyance, it might be frustration ~ though frustration at what I couldn't say. I can't read him right now, this morning, like I usually can. 

Still, I retort lightly, “Nuh uh. You just said I was pretty.”

“He's got you there,” Jasmin agrees, stubbing out her cigarette against the bricks of the building, dropping it in a bucket by the door. “Come on twerp, our ten's more than up.” Whether this is true or not, I can tell she's realized she's been obviously nosy, was most likely bred to be more subtle. She looks embarrassed for me almost, as she and Kevin disappear inside. 

“I'm sorry,” I rasp to Mac, “I didn't mean to invade your space. I just didn't know where to go ~” I hold out my hands in that “I'm lost” gesture. Sometimes it also means “I come in peace” but I don't really. I come in restlessness, I cone in confusion, I come in search of comfort, and Mac doesn't seem inclined to provide ease. “I just miss you is all.” the helplessness lacing my whisper is pathetic. I want to pull him into me and kiss him, to lose myself in the warmth and comfort Mac can exude, and I want to hide my face and pretend I never came, because the arm around my waist dropped as soon as his coworkers went in through the back door, and I know he'd put it there solely for their benefit, whether showing off or showing ownership, I don't know, but it's so unlike Mac, whose every gesture is natural, spontaneous, uncalculated, I feel a twinge deep in my gut, a catch in my throat, like an alarm going off. 

“It's not that ~ it's just busy today and ~” a quick, insincere disclaimer designed to set me at ease that only brings on a quick flash of unreasonable anger. I'd thought at least he and I were past the point of prevarication. 

Though if we were, I chastise myself, the anger mellowing as fast as it came on and leaving a scorched, empty depression behind it, I would be telling him all my suspicions about Mari right now. Instead, I'm sparing his feelings a little while longer, as he's sparing mine, for whatever reason. So I brush a shank of hair that's flopped over his bandanna back into place, the familiar action bringing a small measure of comfort anyway, cup his jaw and brush my thumb over his lips in imitation of a kiss. I'm not about to swap spit and spread my germs. “It's fine,” I say, “just to see you for a minute was all I wanted. I'm fine now.” It's a half-lie. I'm far from fine, but better than I was. 

His brows draw together, he catches my hand before it falls back to my side. “Matty bab ~ Matt, as soon as I'm done here I'll run straight home, ok? Then you won't have to miss me anymore. We'll eat something good and have a nap together, right?” He kisses the ball of my palm before releasing my hand. “Ok Matty?”

Ruffling his hair, I confirm, “We're ok,” displacing the lock I'd just tidied, adding impishly, “Baby.”

He swats at me with a rag pulled from his back pocket, relief in his grin. “You're a pain in my ass Matty Munroe, but mostly you're worth the shit you pull.”

“And you're a brat, but you're my brat, so I deal.”

He blows me a kiss as I saunter back to my truck. 

Jamming my hands in the pockets of my jacket, I scrape my knuckles against miniature Mari. On a whim, passing Mac's black Hyundai, I open the door with his spare key and place the figurine on the dash. It's not really finished yet, but it doesn't matter. 

 

By the time I'm back in my truck though, the brief reprieve from restless unease has passed, and following another whim, I steer onto 405, heading to I-5 south. I have nearly a full tank of gas and itchy feet and totally disregarding the fact there's nothing there for me now I'm heading for home ~ not 14th Av home, because that's the last place I want to be right now. I don't want to see buildings, I don't want to see cars ~ not the fuming, tense, bumper to bumper type cars ~ I don't want to see people. There's about five hours or so before Mac gets home and if I don't hit traffic I have time to stare at the [little white farm house with green shutters sitting smack in the middle of a green field surrounded by a board fence]. I want to just dwell ~ no wallow ~ for a space of five minutes in past ghosts. 

They say you shouldn't dwell on the past, of course but focus on the future (and don't ask me who “they” are, it's probably the same “they” who say you shouldn't do all sorts of things you'd rather do, like smoking and drinking and running with scissors, you know what I mean). In general, I guess, that's right, except I think sometimes you have to. I have to. I just need to be there for a minute, to see where I came from, to remember where we started, and why it's worth the headache to keep going. 

My head does still ache, and the light has grown brighter as the day's progressed. Another stinking nice day, I think, fishing in the pile of crap on the passenger seat for my sunglasses, flipping the visor down with the other hand then reaching for the radio dial and steering with my knee as I accelerate and merge into traffic. Even though Mac sat there just the other day when we drove to Volunteer Park, that's how quickly Matt Munroe accumulates odds and ends: Monday's necktie, Tuesday's sports page, two empty cigarette boxes, three empty Starbucks cups, two John Updike novels (used), half a Snickers bar (slightly melted onto the newspaper), a box of shells, a pair of running shoes, a cracked CD case (empty), and three Red Bull cans (empty. No wonder I can't sleep). The low soothing twang of some country singer floats through the speakers and I stop fiddling with the dial, and that much of my attention released, I also stop my blind rummaging through my junk pile when I spy my my sunglasses resting conveniently on the dash, flick them open and shove them on my face one-handed in relief. By Fife, though, it's gotten so bad I can hardly see, I'm focusing my attention so hard on the blurred lines of the road and the bumper of the car in front of me to keep driving in a straight line I know I've got to pull off at a gas station, get something, anything for my throbbing gray matter, pull myself together enough to make it home. I don't know how I ever thought I'd make it driving the shorter route, through Elbe and Eatonville on that twisty turney road, and thank whatever secondary whim made me decide to take 5 rather than the patchwork of state routes that approach my hometown from the opposite direction. I refuse to call Mac to pick me up, though at this point that would probably be safer and smarter. He'd either call me an idiot for attempting my road trip, as minor as I planned it to be, because he refused to believe I felt fine this morning, or baby me, which would only happen if I told him why I'd headed south in the first place, which I'm not about to do. Adding my own insecurities to his weird mood this morning could only make things worse. 

So I stagger into the gas station, buy a cup of the swill they put in the coffee pot and two lemon lime Gatorades and three packs of Excedrin and sit in my truck, huddled in my windbreaker with the heat blasting even though it's probably 70 degrees out, hoping the Excedrin will kill the marching band in my head soon. To amuse myself, I picture little white pills with arms and legs and AK-47s running through squishy gray tunnels after little men in plumed hats and epaulets with base drums, still pounding frantically as they run, before falling down in a rain of bullets. 

I don't know why the sound catches my attention. I'm parked behind the gas station, out of the way of drivers that are actually going some place rather than waging imaginary guerrilla wars in their heads, but look up so sharply at the sputter of a badly-maintained engine my brain sloshes against the backs of my eyeballs (along with bullet-riddled bodies of a couple trumpeters). I wince, but squint through the tint of my Oakleys and the glare on the windshield to find the source of the sound. I know it's futile ~ I never saw the car Mari left in the other morning, there's no way to match this one against that one, until a familiar mop of tangled blond pops up from the other side of an ancient Dodge Ram. The truck is old enough to have the ram hood ornament on the nose, and is rusted orange with a blue panel on one side. 

She strides inside the mini mart, oddly dressed for Mari in a white sun dress only a size or so too large and white leather sandals, the kind you see little girls wear in the summertime, flat soled and buckled at the ankles. She's in there only a minute or two, and when she comes out she's steady, I notice. I mean, I don't get the impression her eyes are darting from side to side, muscles tense, collected to strike and ready for some attack that never comes, as Mari often is. 

I don't think she sees me. 

I chug down some of the weak, hot brown liquid, hoping it might give the Excedrin a little help, my foot hovering above the gas. I suppose I don't even realize I planned to follow her until my big red beauty is purring after that snarling orange beast southbound I-5. The lucky part is a big orange piece of shit like that isn't hard to keep an eye on, even in traffic, from several car lengths behind. The bad news is at its steady coughing pace of 57 mph it's hard to keep several car lengths behind. 

By the time we hit Fort Lewis, some miles south of our starting point, I'm ready to give up. I'm pretty sure, even in Mari's oddly relaxed state, she can't have failed to notice me. It's not exactly like my big old red behemoth of a Ford is inconspicuous. If I'd planned ahead I could have taken Mac's Hyundai, but if I'd planned ahead I wouldn't be here at all. I putter along for a few more miles after them, ready to get off at each exit I pass, and still doggedly continuing on, staying in the right lane, letting quicker, faster cars by my truck's near meandering, though the orange monster persistently, rudely holds up the flow of traffic in the middle. I'm determined to get off at the next exit this time, when its turn signal light flashes, and it cuts off a Mercedes and swerves off onto the exit I've focused my attention on. Eyeballing my surroundings, I decide we're either in Lacey or east Olympia. Even struggling as I am through chills and fever haze, everything becomes a little bit clearer. I even say “Aha!” like a nutty professor in a cartoon. 

The Riverside Rest Home is off this exit. 

It'll trickier to hide now, though the further south you go big old trucks become less conspicuous. At the last minute I just drive past the exit, jump off at the next one and circle back through town, approaching the rest home from the opposite direction. I'm just going to see if the pickup is there and leave.

Of course the Dodge is in the parking lot, and I fly past it to do a u-turn in the lot next door. I can't help pausing though, when I catch sight of Mari's maybe-lover standing outside his truck smoking a butt. He's about as tall as I am, judging the length of him against the height of the cab, I figure, but he's one of those wiry whipcord looking guys, lean and snaky, and he walks like a rodeo rider, with a long, almost bow-legged hip swinging swagger heading towards the rest home's front doors. 

There's nothing more to see, and I head back towards the freeway. 

 

It seems to my exhausted brain and body that I've been gone for hours, even though when I pull into the driveway it's only coming on towards 11a.m. Mac's car is already parked in front of the house. He's not supposed to be off work till one, and even then he usually doesn't get home till around three or even four, either because he works late at the cafe or pulls a couple hours at the soup kitchen he helps at sometimes or goes someplace for a couple drinks and appetizers with his coworkers. He probably came home early to be with me like he said he would, and I feel like a guilty teenager out past curfew slinking finally home. He's probably gonna be pissed. As I jump out of the cab and slam the door, my head rings as if it had actually been between the door and the cab when I slammed it, but after allowing myself a quick wince I straighten up and manfully head towards the door, prepared to face the music, as if nothing's wrong at all in the world, even though the world is all wrong. 

I've barely made it to the porch before Mac slams out the door, takes the steps in one stride, hurling himself at me, his arms so tight around my neck I feel choked, and when I struggle (involuntarily ~ it's been a while since my presence invoked this sort of reaction in Mac, but I guess my body likes oxygen) he lets go and holds me by the ears, planting kisses all over my face in between muffled words which I finally understand to be “I'm sorry” over and over.

“Hey, hold up there ~” I try to say, but while before I could at least make myself heard, my voice is totally gone there, barely a gasp of air. 

The old lady who lives next door is walking (tottering) her arthritic, bow-bedecked toy poodle down the street and gives us the stink-eye, but Mac waves and smiles sweetly at her anyway, and holds the smile even when she jerks her dog fast past us, an all-too audible “fucking perverts” escaping her withered, lipstick-bleeding lips, though through clenched teeth he hisses something in French I'm sure isn't very complimentary, then in English, “I can't believe I made her éclairs. She never even brought the plat back either.” That's my boy. 

Taking my hand he pulls me inside. “How come you're so quiet? Are you mad with me?” The screen door slams shut behind us just as I say “No, not at all, I'm sorry I ~” but of course the racket drowns out any whisper that might've reached his ears, and safely inside Mac throws his arms around me again (thankfully now hugging my torso). 

“I'm such a little shit just like you say sometimes Matty I swear. I yell at you yesterday when you're so sick you can hardly walk and then today when you for once I guess actually listened to me so you try to make it better by coming to see me even when you don't feel good I send you away! Man Matty I'm an ass. And I get home and you weren't here and I thought you had a car crash on the way home or something else horrible and I called all the hospitals ~”

Alarmed ~ he seems almost hysterical ~ I push back a little and put my fingers to his lips to shut him up for a minute: “Shh” ~ at least that doesn't require vocal cords. I close in to kiss him, moved by his concern and wanting to soothe because he's upset, but withdraw again ~ germs. Disregarding these entirely, he kisses me instead. Oh well. I guess pretty soon it'll be my turn to feed him Nyquil and orange juice. Probably owe him one anyway, I guess, unless you consider I end up flat on my back underneath him on the couch. After a while, when I can breathe again (he's lean but he's not exactly a lightweight) I move my mouth from his mouth to his ear and say “Ok, I forgive you ~” 

“Umm?” It's an one of those auto-pilot responses, not really a paying attention response. I could just go with it but I'm not up to this shit.

“I said I forgive you already!” I shout in his ear. 

He sits up and I wince at the pressure on my stomach. Pointing an accusing finger at my nose he says, “Have you been talking at me this whole time?”

I laugh silently at his expression, and pull him down to lay full length against me, tucking his head under my chin, where he nuzzles his face down into that spot between my shoulder and jaw bone, eyelashes tickling my neck. After a few moments, the quickened heartbeat against my own slows, the warm breath on my neck steadies, and I realize he's fallen asleep there. Oh well. Idly playing with his hair, I think he can't have slept more than a few hours together the past couple nights. And despite my somewhat recent marathon sleep session, I drift off as well. 

Back in my whoring around days, I learned early on I don't like sharing my sleeping space. Partly, it's for the reason you'd expect: it's disconcerting, waking up next to someone I don't know from Adam ~ or, um, Eve ~ and feeling obligated to at least try to sort through fuzzy details from the night before, feeling a ridiculous urge to offer up some apology for trying to get her/him out (or myself out, depending) of sight stat. Mostly, though, it's for the reason of plain old physical comfort. It's hot, sticky and crowded sleeping with someone else. Usually, you wake up to the subtle stench of someone else's morning breath. And no one ~ I don't care if you're Johnny Depp or Kate Moss ~ looks good when he wakes up, especially me. 

Mac and Mari and I have been sleeping together since we were kids. From the first slumber party pile ups, where we'd collapse on top of each other after a long day of playing hard and a long night of junk food, movies and Nintendo; to more recent days, with Mari spread out everywhere, usually managing to cover Mac and me with what seems like more than the two arms and two legs she actually has, and Mac tossing and turning so much he usually ends up in a totally different place on the bed than he started out and clutching one of us to him like a security blanket (in sleep, he's not picky, it's whomever's closest), I've never minded the company. I think I even sleep better with one or both of them nest to (or on) me. That said, two full grown men squished together sandwich style on a couch that's shorter than the shortest of them is too much. When Mari tweaks my nose ~ just one of the wonderful ways she has of waking a body up ~ the first thing I'm aware of is agony. 

“Oh my fucking God,” I try to moan, attempting to distance myself from Mac without waking him. It's not hard. Our bodies are so slick with sweat I can just sort of slide out from under him, though I'm surprised he doesn't stir at all, even when I adjust the throw pillow under his head, he doesn't even roll over on his back, his customary sleeping position. Gingerly, I stretch out the kinks, rolling my head around and around on a spine that feels like it's been replaced by a metal sign post that's been rammed by a mack truck (no pun intended). The air in the living room is heavy and hot ~ fucking naked Mac again ~ and I stumble over to the thermostat to flick it off. 

“I thought you looked a little uncomfortable,” Mari says quietly from behind me. “He all right?”

I turn around and squint at the wall clock, rubbing sleep from my eyes. It's only just past one, early for Mac to even be home, let alone dead asleep. 

I nod. “Just hasn't slept in two days.”

She raises an eyebrow, looking back and forth between him and me, a small small hovering on the corners of her mouth. I've never risen to the bait though, and I'm not about to now. 

I've wasted very few minutes of my life wondering how other three-person relationships work, though I'd be lying if I said my mind hasn't touched upon it from time to time. When they have sex, or even to out, is it always together, or do they switch off? Does on ever get jealous, feel left out, if two spend more time together one week than the last? But what other people do really has no bearing on my life, and I can only say what's between the three of us. To come right out and say it, when it comes to sex I could care less whether Mari and Mac go at it like bunnies for a solid week straight. It always comes around again ~ me and Mac, Mari and Mac, Mari and me, or all three, we go through phases. While it might not be the manliest thing to admit, I've moaned on and on about it enough already ~ I'm an attention whore. If Mari wanders home and chooses to sit in the kitchen while Mac's making dinner, rather than join me on the couch and zone out to ESPN with me; if Mac asks Mari how her day went without acknowledging me with at least a kiss on the cheek first, I feel a little hurt, and, ok, have been known to pout. Mari, for whatever reason, is the opposite. She'll brush Mac off when he showers her with attention, could care less if I breeze right by her when I come home without even a “hello.” but if she thinks Mac and I have been going at it without her ~ doesn't matter if she and I had a good fuck in the shower just that morning, or if it was the same week she and Mac had been making like the aforementioned bunnies ~ she'll freeze us out. It could be for an hour, it could be for days, as time runs funny in Mari land. But even Mac, who worships the ground she walks on, and is generally blind to most of her faults, is annoyed by this trait of Mari's. “Sometimes it's like she thinks it's just her who has two boyfriends, like me and you aren't supposed to love each other too,” he said, his face screwed up like he'd just eaten something sour, after she locked herself in her office one Sunday afternoon after walking in on Mac and me. I just ignored her, as I usually do, but of course Mac had to start hovering around her door half an hour later, offering up apologies she shouldn't have needed and didn't deserve, and that she never acknowledged anyway. She ended up seducing me on the porch swing that night, long after Mac was in bed. That's Mari for you. Of course, she wouldn't admit to jealousy under any circumstances, even Chinese water torture. I'm not even sure she knows how she acts, or why. 

And right now I'm ignoring that catty reaction again, that expression on her face that's like a taunt and a challenge, the glint in her eye that's unreadable except for the general impression it's not from anything good, even though I know I shouldn't ignore it anymore than Mac should apologize to it. We need to talk about it, but who talks about anything with Mari? Whenever Mac tries, it comes off like whining, and even when I'm doing my best to be reasonable it's always a confrontation. 

So I offer up a cigarette from my pack on the mantle and she follows it through the dining room and kitchen past the laundry and out the back door, where the deck, I'm hoping, is cooler than the front porch. She's still wearing the pretty little sun dress, and it has no pockets for a lighter, so I dig out my own anonymous plastic flame flicker and light us up. “I like the dress,” I say, stepping out to the railing, searching for a breeze to dry my sweat. 

She whispers back, “Thanks,” and joins me, propping her elbows on the wood, wrinkles her nose. “Why are we whispering?”

“Laryngitis.”

She drops her head into her arms and laughs. When Mari all-out laughs, it always sounds slightly manic, but usually it's the sort of nuts that makes you want to laugh with her. For some reason, this is beyond that, and I fight the urge to slap her out of possible hysteria. “Oh god,” she says finally, brushing away a tear. “That's why you're home.” 

I realize the crazed tinge to her laughter is relief ~ she thought something was wrong, something serious enough for Mac and I to both be home at one o'clock on a work day. I feel a little guilty for feeling pissy with her moments before, almost, until the sight of her, nonchalant in her pretty white dress, brings to mind like a base runner slamming into home how I spent my morning. “Gee Mar, glad to hear you think me dying of influenza is nothing.” All my frustration is channeled into this insignificant remark, or insignificant for the feeling behind it, but I think the whisper hides most of that. And she surprises me by folding me into a tight hug, and I make out that she says, even though it's mumbled against my shoulder, “Aw, my poor little Matty-kins. So sorry.” Oddly, she's not being facetious. I cradle the base of her skull in mu palm and touch my forehead to hers. “Don't kiss me you germ farm,” she threatens, then leads me by the hand to the kitchen, pushes me into a chair, and begins rummaging in the pantry. Eventually she emerges with brandy, cooking sherry, bourbon and a can of cream of mushroom soup, shrugs in a way that says, “this is the best we got,” slides me a plastic tumbler and cracks open the soup, starts mixing it in a bowl with the sherry and some water. 

Now, in and of itself, Mac does not object to Campbell's. I've even been told it's a useful ingredient in a pinch or a fit of laziness. However, Campbell's straight from the can, un-concentrated with water (etcetera), and warmed in the microwave is against Mac's religion. I think he might also object to cognac in a purple plastic cup. 

“Oh my God Mar,” he says, standing in the doorway, holding his hair out of his eyes with one of his hands, supporting himself against the door frame with the other. “I know, yeah, he can be a pain in the ass, but you don't haveta kill him or anything.” Suddenly a blur of motion, he whisks the bowl of lumpy gray soup (tinged slightly purple) from under my nose and dumps it down the disposal, says through a yawn, “I kinda like having him around, y'know?”

Mari giggles, a rare sound, carefree with a childish ring to it so at odds with the rest of her, her eyes sparkling with mischief. Of course she knew the ding of the microwave would wake Mac out of the deepest sleep. 

The sound of her laughing like that, for the first time in ages, relaxes muscles I didn't even realize were knotted in my neck and shoulders and chest, lulls me into thinking things might not be so bad after all. 

Mac sweeps up the cognac and dumps half into a snifter, hands it back to me, and my immediate safety ensured, leans back against the counter, arms crossed over his chest, looking dazed after his sudden whirlwind of activity right out of a sound sleep. “What the hell time is it anyway?”

“Round two almost,” Mari says complacently, sneaking the purple cup from behind his back and swigging quickly before he can snatch it back. 

“Um...soup!” he says, finally shaking himself awake. He crosses the kitchen in three fluid steps and buries his head in the fridge. “I told Chef my poor little baby Matty boy was sick with an icky nasty flu and he sent me home early with some chicken and spinach passatelli soup ~”

“You did not say that, you're such a twat Mac.”

“Nah, she's the twat ~” he gestures to Mari with the carton of chicken soup, rummaging in the fridge still with his other hand. “She tried to kill you with curdled Campbell's. I'm just the dick that used his sick boyfriend as an excuse to get off early.”

 

Mari makes a rude gesture in his general direction, but she's grinning. 

“And I hope you're satisfied, 'cause Jasmin couldn't shut up about you,” he says, dumping the soup into a pot and adding pinches of this and that and a couple extra cloves of garlic that make my mouth water as he minces him. It's not because I'm that fond of garlic, though I've got nothing against it, it's the way he looks as the knife flashes so fast over the cutting board it's a blur. A man who can handle a knife like that is seriously hot. “I swear Mari, Matty stopped by this morning on my lunch and Jasmin got a load of him and it was Matt this and Matt that and questions questions all fucking morning,” he babbles good naturedly, and Mari, turning a chair around and straddling it so she can rest her chin on the back, like she often sits, mouths “He's jealous!” to me. A flying clove of garlic hits her upside the head. 

“Hey! Dickhead!”

“I had to say horrible things to her about you just go get her to shut her damn trap, so's the next time you see her, if she asks about your six illegitimate kids and if you've recovered from gonorrhea yet, just go with it, y'know?”

“You little pecker,” I begin, getting ready to chuck the garlic back at his head, but he expected it and turns, lightening quick, soaking me with a shot from the sprayer attachment on the sink. 

“Now who's trying to kill him?” Mari retrieves one of Mac's good table napkins from the closest drawer and begins blotting my face with it. One can only imagine what sort of reaction that will draw. 

 

A couple days later, Friday, all three of us decide to go out. This is a rare occurrence, obviously not because we don't enjoy each other's company, but because the company we enjoy outside each other is so varied. But Mac wanted to try a new restaurant he'd heard about in Freemont, and since neither Mari nor I object to eating, we sort of ended up making a night of it. Mac woke up late from the nap he took after work so he wouldn't fall asleep in his soup and is doing the shower and dress routine, while Mari and I chill on the back deck with a couple bottles from the rack of Coors I bought Monday night and barely made a dent in. 

She's wearing a dress again, a little candy colored strapless thing with a poofy skirt and a little white sweater, the kind that buttons up the front. I've never seen Mari wear pink before in my entire life, and she looks entirely adorable. There's a flush to her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes, and when I tell her she looks pretty she actually smiles at me, a real honest-to-god smile. 

After a few moments of companionable silence, she says lightly, “How come you never said anything about where I went on Wednesday morning?”

Of course I've just taken in a mouthful of beer and end up spitting it over the deck railing, after inhaling some of it. She pats me helpfully on the back as I cough it up. 

Of course she saw me. I don't know how I deluded myself into thinking she didn't ~ wouldn't have. 

“Um...” I stall, searching for a lighter, while my brain scrambles for an answer. I'd actually managed to push the incident to that far-back closet in my head sometime Wednesday afternoon, telling myself there was no reason to be upset. She'd just gone to see her mother. Because she's been so relaxed and cheerful since, and I don't mean cheerful by Mari standards, I mean cheerful by Matt standards or even Mac standards, it's remained locked up. I dig around back there at her question, and pull out, finally, a way to phrase my answer without putting either of us on the defensive. At the same time, my fingers finally encounter my lighter, deep in my pocket, and I touch flame to paper and tobacco. Though my heart is stuttering and she must know it, I take a calm pull from the butt. “I don't even know why I followed you in the first place. It was none of my fucking business.” That much is true. “I got a yen to drive down to the old house and by Milton I was too sick to drive.” True too, that. “When I saw you, with some strange guy, I didn't think, I just wanted to know what was going on. I felt like a total ass when It turned out you were just going to see your mom.” All of it, truth, except maybe the feeling like a total ass part, and hopefully any omissions aren't glaringly obvious. I still kind of want to know who orange truck cowboy dude is and what the fuck he was doing in my house at 5am, but we've both been in such a good mood the past couple days I don't want to shake off my happy with dwelling on it. So I shrug, and tell her the whole story then, or on from seeing Mac on his lunch anyway. 

“It's just felt like something's off lately,” I admit at the end of it. “And Mac acting so weird the other morning, on top of not feeling good, must made me want something familiar. I should've just asked you about it later, or got out of my truck and asked you right then, but my mind's been working funny lately.” 

“We've all been weird lately,” Mari says when I finished, punctuating the statement with only a shrug. And in a rare incident of disclosure (Mari never lies because she doesn't have to, she just keeps her mouth shut, so by this offering all my worries become dust in the wind, as I think Kansas once said), she says, “I don't know the guy really. He tends bar at this place I go to sometimes. He talks a lot, sort of like a reverse bartender, you know, all the customers listening to him. They call him Ajax. One night, he started talking about his bat-shit crazy sister, and how his parents found her a nice place finally. I asked to hitch a ride with him next time he went is all.” 

She doesn't offer up any reason as to why she suddenly wanted to see her mother, but I'm not going to pry after what she's already given me. That, or something else that happened earlier in the week has apparently done her good, given her some peace. Mari hasn't been so relaxed and easy since we were kids. So I accept it, and move on.


	11. Chapter 11

ELEVEN

Some flicks just don't end where they should. I'm not talking about Mari's Breakfast at Tiffany's beef. I'm talking about movies where you're sitting there in the theater, a legitimate happy ending, or at least a satisfying ending, a real end anyway, you know, unfurling on the screen in front of you, all the characters in the right place, all the loose ends tied up, or at least left artistically dangling (indie/art/foreign) or ready for the sequel (Hollywood franchise) and you think, ok, this is it, gathering your candy wrappers and popcorn kernels, making sure you've got you're wallet, and you're half out of your seat, or at least perched on the edge, waiting for the music to swell, the end credits, and...shit keeps happening. After it sinks in you've apparently got a ways to go still, you settle back in, disgruntled, wondering if the actual ending's going to be as good as the false finale that had you fooled.   
I know I said there's no such thing as a real ending, not until your heart stops pumping the blood to your brain anyway, but there are endings in the midst of life, much like vignettes, I guess. These are, say, endings to an era, like a divorce, or a move to another city where nothing is familiar, or after you get hit by a bus and you survive but you're a quadriplegic. The more optimistic might call these new beginnings, but I suppose it depends on which end your focus is. That's not where this analogy's going though.   
When Mari explained all about orange truck dude, and the three of us snapped out of our funks, I was pretty sure that was the end of it. Mari stopped with the disappearing acts, cut out the aimless wandering, seemed to know where she actually was most of the time. After a couple days, the weird spate of pretty clothes tapered off back to the usual, the giggles and flushes and sparkle with it, leaving her in her usual baggy slacks and frayed oxford shirts, taciturn and sarcastic as ever, though the new easiness to her posture remained. If she had kept up with the weird girly shit, I probably would've started to worry about that too, after the novelty wore off.   
And of course with Mari back to normal, Mac stopped fussing about things, and around things and over things, and I could tell it was easier for him to just be, as he actually lounged with me on the couch one Saturday afternoon watching a Rocky marathon, without once getting up to finish the laundry he'd started, unload the dishwasher, or straighten the picture frames hanging askew on the wall behind the TV ~ askew courtesy of Mari, I figured, who nudges them deliberately out of place sometimes because she knows it drives him nuts. I've seen her do it, and seen the sly and subtle look of glee around the corners of her eyes and lips as he mutters over them, straightening, standing back to examine and then re-straightening, all the while wondering under his breath why they keep going crooked. I've even seen him take my level to them, dark eyes squinting intently at the bubble hovering in neon green liquid between the lines, adjusting not even a fraction of an inch, this way or that, until at some point, though I can never tell the difference between this point and the last, he decides they're even, and lets out the breath he was holding, as if the fate of the world's somehow been resolved for the better.   
This time, though, they just hung like that for a week, Celeste's black and white photograph of the oak tree I used as a model for Mac's Christmas carving two years ago (taken at night, the tree is bathed in streetlight that almost seems to reflect off the inside edges of its burnished chrome frame) tilted up about an inch on the right side, and my mom's oil on canvas of Mac and Mari and me actually hanging from its left corner. Although it's abstract, like Mom's stuff usually is, you can still tell who's who, and it seems almost as if she caught our essence there, using some sorcerer's spell to trap a bit of each of us on a square of linen, rather than a thatch of synthetic fibers dipped in pigment and linseed oil. She gave it to us for Christmas this year, and apparently Mac was mostly right. I am cool greens and blues, though there are veins of woody brown running through me and at the core a splash of orangey red that gives off the impression it's pulsing. Mac is somewhat blurred at the edges, though his painted form is fluid next to the blocky right-thereness of mine, his reds and blues blending to purple, almost darkening to a black at some spots in a way that's always disturbed me as he seems ready to enfold Mari and me with thin, endless limbs. Mari is just as I've always thought of her, a wisp of grayish blue, and dark around the eyes and hands, laced with the very faintest of crimson threads, tying the three together, and there's a hint of golden hovering around the edges that surprised me when I first saw it, though it's only obvious now. The sinuous form looks as if it's drifting away, yet reaching towards the others, all at once.   
The pictures stayed like that for over a week, tip-tilted and out of whack, and Mac didn't touch them once, didn't even stare at them like his whole body was itching to lunge at them, attack the oddness and replace it with order, didn't even purposely avert his gaze as he passed by them, as he will with some things he longs to straighten but won't because he knows he'll get shit for it. It finally drove me nuts enough that last night I couldn't stand it anymore, and fixed them myself. Mac keeps my level in the drawer of the TV stand for just this purpose. Maybe hanging so awkwardly for so long had caused the nail that supported Mom's painting to become slightly dislodged, because no matter what I did, it still looked off, and I'd finally resorted, in a fit of frustration, to fling open the drawer, fish out the level, and approach the painting with it fisted in my hand like a weapon, as if its crookedness were something to conquer. Maybe I've been spending a little too much time with my beloved lately. I was definitely too intent on my task though, because I didn't even notice when he entered the room. Even when totally silent I can tell when one of them is near. At his crow of laughter I jerked so hard I almost knocked the damn picture off the wall.   
“See? I knew you would do that eventually,” he said, flopping the length of himself across the couch. Irritated, I glared at him a moment before returning to my task, finally resorting to banging the nail a bit further into the wall with the butt of the stupid level before hanging the picture back on it. To my further annoyance, it hung there perfectly then, on the first try. I guess sometimes you just have to use a little force.   
“See?” Mac said again. “I'm not that anal. I knew it would get to you sooner or later.” I settled down over him at the other end of the couch, emotionally exhausted by my ordeal, propping my heels on the coffee table, bridging his shins with my legs. That, of course, was too much for him, and he sat up and lifted my ankles with both hands off and away from the polished surface.   
I let my legs drop bonelessly, heels thudding to the floor with a thud. “I can't believe you actually left them there like that for eight whole days,” I said, groping in the couch cushions for the remote.   
He shrugged. “It's not so hard when you crookedized them yourself,” he said, opening the drawer in the side table and handing me the object of my search. I didn't reach out for it though, just stared at him, at a loss.   
“Why the hell would you do that?”  
“You said I was so anal about shit I couldn't let something be for even a second,” he explained patiently. “Well now you know where I'm at. I'm just there a lot more often than most people.”  
I groaned and let my forehead fall to the coffee table with a bang. In a fit of frustration I'd blurted out something like that a couple weeks before maybe, and I can't even remember why anymore. “Sorry,” I muttered, my breath fogging the varnished wood.   
I forget how sensitive he is sometimes, even after so many years, and I expected some kind of emotional blow-out. Mac can hold things in for days and then suddenly just burst, lashing out at you as if what ever was eating at him happened only the moment before. Instead, he just laughed, pulled my head off the table by a fistful of hair, and kissed me full on the mouth. "It was pretty fucking funny watching you with that level. I almost thought you were gonna beat yourself over the head with it."  
"Maybe beat you over the head with it," I growled low in my throat, almost actually pissed at him, and his stupid white-toothed grin, but I knew he was right, and let it go, holding my hand out. "Pull me up, asshole. I need to be fed."  
Even only as far back as a couple months ago I would have beat him with that goddamn level at that point, or at least given him a good smack in the ass with it, but I've mellowed some lately. I know where that core of red came from in my mom's painting, but I’m not so quick to flare up anymore. I think the only thing keeping me from that mellowing point in the midst of after-college settling had been the recent uneasiness over Mari, and Mac’s fidgetiness over it. Now that things have settled some, I'm more at ease in my skin. I hadn't thought for so long about my April-induced identity crisis of a couple years ago, when I told Mac I didn't know, more or less, whether the real me was an inebriated, sex-obsessed jock; a sex-obsessed wannabe artist; or a loner who likes to lay around all weekend in his underwear reading, though in this house, what with Mac's penchant for tropical temperatures, it's hard to avoid the laying around in underwear part. I'd put all that away though, deciding I wasn't gonna let it fuck with me anymore, and more or less forgot about it, wrapped up in the new direction my life was taking with Mac, and then with Mari too. The other day though I pulled it out and dusted it off, finally actually feeling the truth of what Mac said when I first told him about it, that it didn't really matter, or at least the partial truth of it. Because in a way, it does matter. Or actually, all those parts of me matter. I need to be all three, just like a person needs a balanced diet. And everyone has different parts of himself, different faces he shows to the different facets in his world. Mine are just a little more diverse. I only had to mature enough to tone it down a little, find the right times and places to show each face to the daylight. Shakespeare said the world's a stage, ad that's sort of what I mean here, but it's more like some anonymous said, that it's how you play the tame. Except, I think that was meant in a competition type of context, and that's not what I'm talking about either. Screw it. You know though, the thing about this Janus thing, is you can tell who the most important people are because they know all your faces.   
Obviously there's my moms, and Mac and Mari, but oddly enough, the only other one is John McGee. I contemplate this fact as we sit here at one of our usual Monday night haunts, me with a Heineken and a nice, plain, bloody hung of steak and a good old fashioned baked potato, McGee with a foo foo salad and a glass of white wine. Even though I've been trying to spend more time at home with at least Mac (Mari's pushing a deadline, I think) McGee’s important to me, and it's because he's one of those few people who knows me in and out. Besides, I have to do something on Monday nights, to wash away the aftertaste of the before 6 o'clock time of the day. What I want to know, is why Mondays seem to happen so much more often than Fridays. And why does a block of nine hours at the beginning of the week seem to last so much longer than at the end of the week, when you're racing to get shit done before 6 o'clock? I know other people have been asking this question since time began too, and with all the leaps in scientific advancement the past century, you'd think someone would've figured it out.   
Everybody at the bank was having a bad day today. No one could do anything right. If I wasn't too slow, I was too fast: "You're not counting out loud, boy! You're muttering to yourself. And lay the money down on the counter so I can see what bill it is, or I'll think you're trying to cheat me!" said a sweet looking little old lady who must've been a crony of my vicious poodle-pulling neighbor. Meagan was snapping at everyone, taking out the lashing she got from the regional manager, even though knowing Meagan it can't have been anything that was really her fault. Mostly likely, the regional manager was taking out the berating he'd got from the next tier up on her, just like she was taking it all out on us. And to top it all off, in the break room, sweet little venomous Amber, whom I'd so much wanted to have faith in, tittered over her Starbucks with Rashid, who kept shooting surreptitious glances in my direction.   
Eventually though, Mondays do end, and I'm celebrating that fact with the sort of food I never get at home and a lot (or working up to a lot) of beer. McGee and I and I are alone tonight, because Paulo's on a date, and McGee is exhausted a result.   
"We may be gay, Matt, but we're men. My God! We are not supposed to go through our wardrobes five times and then try on everything in it no less than twice, nor are we supposed to bemoan the size of our asses in the mirror while doing so, and then spend no less than an hour locked in the bathroom doing our hair and makeup!"  
"Paulo wears makeup?" I snap out of the overwhelmed daze I sometimes can't help but fall into when McGee carries on like this.   
"Only a little foundation, who doesn't? Which is why it shouldn't have taken a whole bloody hour!"  
I examine the foam on the top of my beer, trying to kill the thought that McGee is probably wearing CoverGirl as he speaks. He continues to yammer on, and admittedly, I'm mostly tuning him out, until I catch the tail-end of a sentence: "...Mari doing with Alex Jackson?"  
"Huh? who? When?"  
"Where what why how?" McGee snaps his fingers below my nose. "I thought that would get your attention," he says. "I was saving that little tidbit for later in the evening but I seem to have lost you earlier than usual. Trouble in Matt's sordid little paradise?"  
"Don't be a tool McGee. Direct-attack cat hissing doesn't suit you. And who are you calling sordid anyway?" The counter hits its mark. McGee looks appropriately chastised, but his opening punch has left me a little stunned too, because McGee, as I've learned, is usually right on, if not uncomfortably close, when it comes to the hard truth of a matter, and I'm wondering what he thinks he knows. The fact of the matter is, my "sordid little paradise" has been pretty nice lately.  
"I know about that, if that’s the guy who walks like a cowboy and tends bar," I say. "It's nothing."  
“Nothing sexual, that I know my darling boy,” McGee nods, forking in an olive and sipping form his wine glass. And I’m very still then, he has my total attention. If nothing sexual, then what? What else is there with that girl? McGee stabs some romaine onto his fork, and carefully maneuvers feta onto it with his knife. I’m sitting there staring at him as if he alone knows the date and time of the end of days. “Oh, what? Mr. too-good-to-listen-to-my-idle-gossip wants to know more?” He takes a delicate bite and chews.  
I sigh, gulp my beer. What a little bitch.  
“fine, no need to look like a whipped dog,” McGee dabs his lips with his napkin. “You know I can’t keep a good slice of gossip in to save m life, it would’ve come out anyway and you would have still had your pride.”  
Actually, McGee can be the most tight-lipped gay man I know when it suits his purposes.   
He lays his napkin in his lap and takes another sip of wine. I push my plate back (I was nearly done anyway) and light a cigarette.  
“So they call this person Ajax,” he begins, derision for the trite nickname dripping from his voice. “He’s a couple years older than us, and originally from Phoenix. Some say he’s up here because he has a warrant out, which I’d totally believe, except that a much more reliable source told me he actually came up here to go to grad school at the U, for science I think, chemistry or something like that, and I myself used to see him around campus.”  
The waitress returns to take my plate and ask us if we need anything. That’s one of the perks of hanging out with McGee. You can bitch all you want that the ambience is tired and old, the food mediocre, and the servers surely at many of the places we frequent, but if you’re out with John, the food is the best the kitchen can make, and the service is prompt, because everyone knows John McGee, and if they don’t love him, they’re terrified of him, or at least his reputation, which is pretty impressive for a 24 year old grad school student.   
I give the girl one of my best smiles and slide my empty glass to her in response. She’s a pretty little ting, petite with a round sweet face, but she’s died her bobbed hair black and has too heavy a hand with the eyeliner. Her breasts, however, are the perfect size, around a large B I’d guess, her butt a perfect bubble, and her waist itty bitty. An M&M, but it never hurts to let them know you appreciate looking, even if you can’t touch. She looks back and forth between McGee and I, a wrinkle between too-thinly plucked brows, but after that small skipped beat smiles weakly back and takes the glass, asking, “The same?” and I nod.   
“That’s three, so shut up,” I say to McGee before he can start. “Anyway, so dude’s name is really Alex Jackson,” I prompt. “What makes you think it’s not a sex thing?”  
“He’s totally, completely in love with his wife, to the point of obsession almost. And while we all know that kind of scenario never ends well, the point here is he would never cheat on her,” he elaborates. “If I were straight I’d be in danger of falling for her myself. Gorgeous woman, and she’s absolutely delightful. I haven’t the foggiest as to why she’d attach herself to scum like Alex Jackson.” It’s high praise for McGee, who is a bit of a misogynist usually.   
I’m lost. I stab out my cigarette. “So why are you telling me this? It’s not like Mari doesn’t usually gravitate towards unsavory characters. She attracts them like a magnet.”   
McGee sighs. “The only reason Alex Jackson ever spends an inordinate amount of time with one person, besides his wife, is if he can get something from him.” He retreats into his wine glass for a time, and little dead girl waitress returns with my beer.   
“What can a guy like that want from a girl like Mari if it isn’t sex?” I know it sounds like I’m talking shit about Mari here, but it’s truly an honest question. I mean, it’s not going to be witty conversation he wants from her for sure, and definitely not fashion advice. And if he’s having trouble with his wife, if he’s looking for words of wisdom from Mari Macy, he’s shit out of luck. That only leaves ~ oh shit.  
“Alex Jackson is a criminal, and everyone knows it Matt. If it’s illegal, he’s dipped his toe in the water at least, if not gone full out skinny dipping in it.” He pushes aside his wine glass and takes up the cup of coffee the waitress automatically knew he would want as soon as she removed his plate. Such is the life of John Q. McGee. “Look, Matt, I eased you into this to se e how much you already know. You’re not the type to share confidences even with your best friend, but it’s clear to me now you’re as ignorant as an infant in this matter, and the fact is Mari’s been seen wit this person far more often than once, by many more individuals than myself, and much further back than recently.”  
Again it’s like we’re playing statues, I can feel the activity of the room around me stop, wait staff suspended in mid-stride and -serve, diners in mid-bite and -drink. The prisms of light reflected form the chandeliers above are crazily amplified, picking out and highlighting odd bits if scenery: the too-carefully covered zit on one sleep scenester chick’s chin, the glistening drop of gin dripping from a toothpick-speared olive midway from martini to mouth, the raggedly chewed and bloody cuticle on the thumb of a waiter across the room carelessly displayed as he deposits a leather folder on another diner’s table…I can’t breathe, I’m trapped in suspended animation with everything else.   
I can see half of it very clearly. I can see what the lamely-named Ajax wants with Mari. Mari is an avid student of fire arms, but she's a natural when it come to their operation. I'd bet serious money you could give her a gun or any modern approximation thereof (I've seen some of the modern weaponry the powers that be are coming up with these days on TV, and not one of them is as straight forward or honest as a good old fashioned gun. Murder machines, all of them) that only the most in the know military personnel have ever seen, much less touched, and she'd have it figured out and working like a charm in a bare number of minutes, merrily annihilating something or other. That's not the crux of it though. It's not just guns. Mari's a slippery little cat. She's one of the most intelligent persons I know, possibly the most, and she's crafty. She doesn't think like other people, she thinks like, well, a deviant. And she's scary creative. And mostly unscrupulous. Someone like Ajax could absolutely use someone like Mari.   
It's why Mari's hanging around him that’s got me befuddled. What is she using him for? A character study? Obviously, it's more than a ride down south. And she lied to me, about that, for the first time ever. Or was it? Mari doesn't want money, she never has. the only possible explanation is the rush, the hunt, the thrill.  
For me, it's enough to hit the bulls eye, there's satisfaction in that. But it's a game to me, much like darts, except...more, or the possibility of more. I've never been hunting though. The first time I shot at a possum that was rooting in our garbage can (back at the farmhouse of course. If I did that around here the police would be banging down our door in minutes) I threw up. Celeste promised never to tell anyone. Mac and Mari don't have an issue with that sort of thing. I can still remember the look in her eyes when she blew off the face of a coyote that had been hunting down one of the feral kittens that lived in the abandoned barn at the back of her dad's property.   
I shake my head, breathe again. The room comes back with a rush and a clatter of cutlery, chatter of voices. It's too much and I stand, barely acknowledging McGee, "I've got to get some air."  
He grabs my hand and I try to shake him off but he squeezes tight. "No Matt, sit down. Please."  
"John ~" the note of pleading in my voice is plain to even my ringing ears. He relents, and I make my way out of the restaurant, carefully avoiding anyone's gaze. I'll have to make it up to McGee for leaving him with the tab later.   
It's not, exactly, that I'm disturbed by what I can only assume Mari's doing with this guy. Either way, sex or contract killing, I wouldn't be all that upset. I mean, for Mari, sex, for the most part, with anyone but Mac and/or me, is just sex. It's a recreational activity, like wine tasting or racquetball, or a need to fulfill, like smoking a cigarette.   
I'm not like Mac, I think, pounding pavement past the thinner Monday night Broadway foot traffic, head down, hands jammed deep in the pockets of my slacks. I don't need to know every little thing about my loved ones. Not that I don't understand why Mac does. If my childhood had been so fucked up and unstable, never knowing where the rent was coming from, never knowing if it was this new guy his mom brought home or the next one who was gonna beat the shit out of him or both of them for good this time, I'd be just as insecure I think. He deserves to have some certainty in his life, some assurances, and that's why I don't bitch very often about giving them. It's why I get almost angry at Mari when she doesn't, because she knows him as well as I do, or better.   
And I could totally understand Mari not mentioning a one night stand or even a single serving criminal act. It would hurt to find out about it on the sly, I know now, but I could get that. Some people need things that are all their own, and I'm not her keeper, I'm her lover, her best friend. But to carry on with someone, some stranger, doing whatever ~ I don't know what, any option is equally disturbing right now, even if they're some sort of superhero duo hiding behind Clark Kent disguises, though by what I've heard of him, and what I know of her, the consideration of the possibility is only a sarcasm-laden joke, you understand ~ to carry on with someone for as long as McGee said this has been going on, and I believe he said "a lot longer than recently" or something to that effect, that hurts. You dont' keep that big of a part of your life from a best friend of a lover, not if you take him seriously.   
By the time I've slowed my frantic one-way pacing down the sidewalk enough to actually breathe the air I claimed I needed, I'm at the corner of Broadway and Madison, and about halfway home. This close to summer it's still bright outside, and warm, and my skin is damp under my shirt. I can hear I-5 in the distance, the sounds of traffic from downtown and an ambulance, on its way to either Harborview or Swedish, both within my view, at the top of First Hill. Fuck it, I figure, there's no point going all the way back for the truck now, when I can just jog up and get it in the morning. It's been a couple weeks, since the night before the morning Mari brought that guy into my house, that I've been able to lay even a passing claim to drunkeness, and I feel the need for a good beer binge. My watch says it's barely past 7:30pm, McGee and I started earlier than usual tonight, and I'll have plenty of time for a nice long wallow. I pick up my pace to a slow jog, keeping south on Broadway a couple blocks to Jefferson and turning east down the hill towards the little market by my house, picking up the pace on the steepish down slope, dimly enjoying the fact if anybody's seeing me I must look like a crazy man, out for an evening jog in loafers, slacks and a tie.   
McGee's waiting for me in the parking lot in his little Toyota, fingers drumming a quick rhythm on the steering wheel, brows drawn in either worry or fury, I can't tell. The window rolls down as I approach, and he jerks his head towards the passenger seat. Sighing, I walk around and climb in.   
"How do you do that? You smoke a pack a day and you're barely winded after jogging a mile."  
I shrug. That's not the point, and he knows it.   
"I just wanted to make sure you were all right. It's not at all like you to overreact like that."   
How is this overreacting? Ok, I can see how my evening jog in office attire may have been misconstrued. I just ended a dinner engagement a little abruptly, is all. And walked home.   
"I'm fine, really." As fine as a guy in this sort of situation gets, anyway. I've got this handled. Beer is the answer. "And don't give me that I Told You So look, because I know you told me so." I take a deep breath, hating myself for what I'm about to ask him, but I let it out anyway. "If you hear anything else, will you let me know?" There goes my pride.   
He smiles weakly. "You know I wouldn't be able to keep it to myself, darling." But he nods a little. He knows what I'm really asking. I want him to dig up dirt.   
"Look, I'm sorry I ditched out on you like that. I swear I'll pick up the tab next week. I just need to work this out in my head."   
He opens his mouth like he's about to say something, but he knows me well enough to know whatever he's about to say, anything from I Told You Sos, to Pithy Advice, to False Assurances will probably set me off. So he climbs up in his seat instead, kneeling, and leans in to give me a choke-hold hug. I don't think I've ever had a McGee hug ~ not just a friend hug. Aside from those first few times we met, those times I can actually call dates, we've mostly made a point of not touching each other, unless he's trying to purposely set me off. But the hug, it's the exact right thing to do.   
"Thanks," I manage gruffly, then after a beat, pick up his cell phone from the cup holder he always keeps it in when he's driving, in the rare moments it's not pressed to his ear with his lips flapping into the mouthpiece, and punch my cell number in. "It's a privilege, don't abuse it."  
He nods with appropriate solemnity, and I get out, shut the door, stretch muscles beginning to stiffen even in the short time I sat in his car without appropriate cool down time from my impromptu run as he drives away. I feel a little naked. Whenever something goes wrong in my life, first instinct is to shove it down deep and hide it from prying eyes. I don't tell people stuff, and it feels weird that John knows, and that he has my number.   
I shake off the feeling though and watch the Toyota speed up the street and turn before walking into the store, again hands jammed deep in my pockets, watching my shoes.   
It's because of this I don't see him at first. I walk right past him to the cooler on the back wall, haul out an 18 pack of whatever can's on sale this week, grab a bag of Lays and a box of Nilla wafers on my way up to the register. He's leaning with his back against the edge of the counter, arms crossed over his chest in a holey old Flogging Mollies tee shirt and a ratty pair of cargo shorts. I can feel my face automatically stretching into a smile until his expression sinks in. He's pissed about something. I'm not playing the waiting game this time though.   
"What're you doing here?" I place the flat of a palm and splayed fingers lightly on his stomach, searching for reassurance in the warmth of him, reaching around him to put the rest of my purchases before the register.   
His hand closes over my fingers in a vice grip. This isn't the "I need to hold your hand" kind of vice grip. This feels more like "I want to hurt you."  
"I couldn't sleep. Out of smokes," he says, his voice almost flat dead line except for an edge from the back of his throat.  
Ed at the counter is waiting for my money. I swipe my debit card and place the receipt carefully at the back of the week's file of them in my wallet and grab up the case of beer and black plastic bag of crap food in one fist. Mac's exiting the store in front of me, his strides long, slow and measured. The rubber soles of his thongs smack back up and hit his heels with that obnoxious thwacking sound at every step. The cowbell on the door handle jangles loudly as I catch the door swinging back behind him before it hits me in the face. I can hear it echoing as I jog the few steps it takes to catch up with him.   
"What the hell is your problem?" I catch his arm in a firmly just above the elbow as I close in behind him, and he swings around, throwing me off balance, so I have to stagger to stay standing. His eyes are huge despite the death glare he's shooting me and they glitter in the late spring sunlight.   
"What the fuck was that?" he demands from between clenched teeth, left arm extended, rigidly pointing to the empty, cracked blacktop three-space parking lot. Dumbly, I stare at a lonely cheerful dandelion growing up through a crack in the pavement.   
"Wha~?"  
"How long?" he persists. He's not yelling, his voice is in fact a low, quiet hiss. The impact is the same though, and I'm beginning to be alarmed, because first instinct when confronted with something like this is to apologize as profusely and sincerely as possible, no matter whether you mean it, just to make it go away fast. But I have no idea what to apologize for, and I'm left standing there, slack-jawed, as the muscles at the corner of his eyes twitch a final time before he turns to walk away.   
It takes me a second to catch up. I'm just staring after him like a half-wit for a few moments, watching his transformation from board stiff and furiously twitching to leisurely nonchalant and strolling away from me, hands in his pockets, chin tilted up, as if he's watching, perhaps, a passing flock of birds or a curiously shaped cloud above and to the left, though the sky is clear. Even from behind, though, I can imagine him blinking furiously. So I shut my trap and follow his jay-walked path at an even trot, nearly bumped by a Crown Vic in the process and the elderly black woman behind the wheel rolls down her window especially to curse at me. What's with the old-lady hate lately?   
"Mac!" I call, ignoring a group of college girls in jogging shorts and sports bras probably trekking their way up the hill to their near-by dormitory, and likely elbowing a couple in the process, "Adam Angus MacPhrae!"  
That one stops him dead in his tracks.   
He turns slowly enough so it's only by the time I skid to a halt in front of him we're nose to nose. I know by instinct his fists are tightly clenched at his sides, but I'm sure not going to look down and give away the fact it kind of freaks me out when he does that.   
"How do you even have the fucking balls?" he spits in my face.   
"What?" I'm trying to play it light, "You invoke 'Matthias' with tiresome regularity."  
"Don't be a jackass Matty. I know what I saw back there." Again, the pointing, only this time the dandelion and the small, cracked parking lot are out of view.  
Is it the beer? I look down at the heavy cardboard carton still clenched in my left fist. My fingers are beginning to cramp, so I shift it under my arm like an oversized angular football. I know he's not too fond of the inebriated side of Matt, but I had no idea the aversion was this severe.   
"Oh for fuck's sake, will you stop playing dumb? He was all over you back there, and you didn't seem to mind even a little fucking bit. I told Billie she was full of shit when she told me there was something going on with you and John McGee," he pauses to shove me back, two handed like a basket ball chest pass, and I nearly fall on my ass, I’m that baffled by the hissing stream of words flowing from out his lips, "I told her you weren't like that, would never do something like that to me ~" he's approaching again, in a sort of tiger-stalk walk, until he's right up in my face again, and I wonder what the purpose of pushing me away in the first place was, "and instead you make a fucking fool out of me! Did you little love birds make up nice after your nasty little fight at Charlie’s? How long has this been going on, Matt? Every fucking Monday night since God knows when?" He finally stops, panting, and I think it's lucky we're in the middle of the sidewalk in broad day light, because if we were at home behind closed doors I'd be seriously afraid for my well-being, despite the four inches and 40 ~ well, 30 now ~ pounds I have on him. There's a reason Mac survived high school despite being a skinny little fag. And still, all I can do is blink. I feel like someone's plucked me out of the world I know and sometimes love and deposited me on the other side of the looking glass. Any moment the Cheshire cat's grin is going to appear out of thin air. I'm still having trouble trying to grasp exactly what he's talking about when he suddenly uncoils, slumps, brushes his hair out of his eyes and says, "I don't even what to look at you." He turns and walks away the same way he began, except this time his eyes are on his feet, and I see him, for just a moment, as a dejected teenager, a child who's just had his world upended, like it's been too many times before.   
That fades quickly though, leaving me hugely pissed off on top of confused. I set the case of beer on the ground and sit on it, right there on the sidewalk, light a cigarette, suppressing the impulse to flip off the woman who's peeking out at me from a curtained window across the street. After a few desperate puffs that have nothing of the intended calming effect, I pull out my phone and dial McGee's number from memory.   
"Darling, delighted to hear from you so soon. It's so nice to be missed."   
"Whatever do you mean darling?"  
"Why is Mac suddenly treating me like I've got a big red A emblazoned on my chest?"  
"What? A big red..? Oh."  
"McGee, for the love of ~ what do you know?"  
"Well the thing is, Matt, the thing about Mari wasn't the only little tidbit I had to impart to you tonight, I was just saving them till after dinner so I wouldn't spoil the taste of that delicious looking steak of yours and ~"  
"McGee, You're a vegetarian. Just spit it out."  
"Just because I don't want to eat it myself doesn't mean it doesn't look ~"  
"McGee!"  
"Fine," he snaps. "George the waiter has been telling the world you and I are an item since we ruffled his pretty little gaudy-ass tail feathers the other night at the Broadway Grill."  
"George the ~ who the hell is George, McGee, and how did I piss him off?"  
"You know, the one you said had a nice ass who attempted to defend your right to get drop-dead drunk on a weeknight," he huffs impatiently.   
Oh. He didn't look like a George. A thought occurs. "McGee, that was two, three weeks ago! People have been saying you and I are ~ three fucking weeks?"  
"I'm sure it was only two, Matt. And you can be sure I've done nothing to perpetuate these ~"  
His voice fades as the hand holding the phone drops from my ear, and absently I click the phone off. So Mac has been wondering for two weeks if I've been fucking around on him? No wonder he's been acting so weird. Still, even though that explains that, I'm so mad I could spit, as my mom says. Though I actually spit all the time for no reason at all, so I guess the quote doesn't work so well.   
In a fuming daze, I get halfway down the block before I remember my beer, sitting lonely in the middle of the sidewalk behind me. I almost don't go back for it, so intent am I on getting home and ripping into that little shit. That's how mad I am, which says more than spitting. What I want to know is how Mac could think I would ever do something like that to him. Ok, so I never had a reputation for fidelity, and I do tend to look where I shouldn't more than I should. But I've never really been in a relationship before ~ psycho gun-toting cheerleaders and deranged sculpture-smashing art students don't count ~ so how can my reputation for fidelity even be a point? And looking is just looking, goddamnit, and he should know me better than that. I mean, McGee? No.  
"Mac!" I bellow, slamming the font door so hard the house trembles and my mother's painting slips askew on its nail. "Mac, where are you, you fucking idiot?" I holler again, just to put the fear of God into him, because I know where he is, and drop the beer on the coffee table. I lost the cookies and chips at some point in the journey from market to home (oh treacherous home, that used to be my refuge and is now the residence of the two biggest asses on the planet ~ a matching set ~ and yours truly). Full of righteous fury, I pound up the stairs, ready to lay into him the moment my feet cross the threshold of the bedroom. As soon as I see him I begin to lose steam.   
He's laying on the bed, propped up on a pile of pillows, legs crossed at the ankles, still in his tee-shirt and shorts, holding a smoking cigarillo in one hand and a glass of bourbon in the other. I know it's bourbon because the bottle of Maker's Mark sits open on the night stand ~ and, I can smell it. His eyes are shadowed, I can see when he turns his gaze from the window to my probably beet-red face. I will not give in, I am going to give this boy hell for being such a fucking putz.   
"Mac, you fucking putz." It comes out as a deflated sigh.   
"At least I'm not a cheating bastard," he says, a stubborn set to his chin.   
Is one truly a bastard if one's mother carefully planed and executed his conception and arrival? I suppose a bastard is as a bastard does, though, and either way I'm not ~ not to him anyway, so I resent the slur. But I know this look of Mac's. He's got a slow fuse, but when he goes it's hot and fast, and leaves behind a spent, empty shell of nothing. I can see it now, how he must have seen it, just through McGee's back window. McGee had his arms around my shoulders, and his head must have blocked Mac’s view of the nothing that actually happened, leading him to believe the worst. But how could he believe that, and how ~   
"Who told you I was at Charlie’s?"  
Mac stares blankly at me for a moment, then drains his glass in two long swallows and sets it gently on the nightstand. He's so anti-climactic sometimes, sets up for a big finish then...nothing. Poof.   
"Billie was there. She saw the whole thing, you and McGee having your cozy little tête-à-tête and then you walking out and him trying to stop you. She calls me right after she sees it, after I made a fucking idiot of myself last week defending you: You know, don't be a bitch Billie, My Matt would never..." he pours another four fingers or so into his annoying cut glass lowball and settles back against the pillows, takes a slow drag, squints at me through the exhale. "So I waited. I waited for forever because I knew you were coming straight home. I knew it wasn't what she said, what everyone was saying about you and John. But you didn't come and I was out of cigarettes and I walked down to get some ~ and oh, shit, there's My Matt, makin' it with that fucking little weasel right in the middle of the fucking parking lot."   
I've called McGee a little weasel myself before but never with such bitter vehemence. That doesn't bother me. But you know what does? He seems to be wasting a lot more energy worrying about being made to look ridiculous by my assumed defection than the actual assumed defection. I'm starting to get my mad back, but in a sort of hopeless, tired way ~ slow burn.   
"How long Matt?" he's saying. "You never said. You didn't answer." There's a plaintive note to his voice, a whine that, unaccountably, makes my teeth hurt ~ or maybe that's me clenching them hard enough to grind enamel.   
"What do you think Mac?" I ask in my best conversational tone, after forcing my jaw to open.   
He just looks at me with those empty dead dog eyes. "I thought I knew you better than anyone."  
"So did I."  
Why don't I protest? Why don't I take him in my arms, smooth back his hair, and explain the misunderstanding in low, soothing tones, make all the hurt I know he's feeling go away? A large part of me wants to do just that ~ maybe even the largest part. I can't stand to see the way he's looking at me. but instead of making it go away, I turn away. The smaller, angrier part of me is rearing up and I don't know if I can touch him right now without hurting him.   
I'm on my fourth or fifth can, my eyes trained to something on TV though I haven't seen a thing, when Mari swings through the door, absently straightening the painting as she passes through, says, "You know that drives him crazy," aside, on her way up the stairs.   
About a quarter hour later she's standing in front of me. I've got six empties now, in a small pyramid on the coffee table, my feet propped up beside it with my shoes still on.   
She sits down beside me, helps herself to a can. "Are you aware you're watching the weather channel?"  
"Huh?"  
"He's really fucked up over this Matt."  
"Oh yeah?"  
"Just swallow your pride down and tell him he's wrong."  
"You should have heard some of the things he said, Mar."  
She nods, lays her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her and just hold on for a while.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where this thing starts to go completely off the rails. Oops.

TWELVE

I'm almost sure tension like this is what gives men high blood pressure and drives them to drink. It's not the sort of tension that comes before a test, like during final exam week, when you should have text books and calculators and crumpled wads of scratch paper coming out your every orifice you've been cramming so hard. It's not going to go away the same way as when you put down your pencil in those last minutes, knowing pass or fail, it's done.  
This tension's not like being stuck in rush hour traffic, a time when every last person on the road has no concern for anyone or anything except himself and getting himself home, and your damn take of a vehicle is too big to fit between even the largest space from one fender to another bumper, and you're so tempted to pull the gun from under its case on the floor behind the seat, not to hit anyone, but just to scare the shit out of those idiots slowing to a crawl to gawk at the unfortunate one surrounded by flashing lights, who knew he couldn't fit in that space but, possibly too optimistic or too trusting in the good will of a fellow commuter, assuming room would be made, tried it anyway. All that shit slips away and evaporates to nothing as soon as your front tires hit the edge of your driveway.  
This is how the captain feels before his ship sinks. This is now the Nascar driver feels before he hits the wall. This is how the pilot feels when both engines go. You know if you work whatever controls operate your vehicle with enough finesse, angle the rudder perfectly enough to avoid that rock, turn the wheel just a little to the left and have the luck to grab traction at the last second, you just might make it through.  
No one's that good. It's not a human failing, I think. It's that outside circumstances always intervene: the wind and the rain and the earth beneath. It's the things you never saw coming, couldn't have predicted, that facilitate human failing. The worst part is not knowing what hit you, not knowing what to curse, as falling, you crash and burn.  
This is the tension in the middle of all this, knowing all's not lost, as long as there are no rocks hidden beneath the waves. And you want to quit, because there's no way to predict something like that, and if the worst was inevitable, at least you spent your last moments saying your prayers, rather than working your ass off to avoid something you couldn't have.  
The sound of Mac slamming out the door wakes me from a deep drunken stupor. I'm sprawled mostly across the couch, a couple odd limbs hanging off, cold and numb, still fully dressed and shod. The voice from the TV is announcing a ten percent chance of rain for Phoenix, Arizona. According to the clock on the wall, even through blurry vision, it's 5 o'clock, and Mac's seriously late. Mac is never late. It's just another sign, ringing loudly in my brain as the metallic reverberations from the slamming screen door, that everything is off kilter.  
Scratch that. My life is seriously fucked up.  
At work, for instance, Amber asks me, with wide, deceptively innocent eyes, “So your boyfriend is John McGee?”  
Amber is one of those loathsome folk who only smoke when they can cadge one off someone else. But when she'd sweetly asked for a cigarette in the break room, I thought she might be charming and distracting company, and decided to give her the benefit of the doubt concerning what I assumed was the subject of the gossip session I spied between her and Rashid yesterday, because you know what they say about assumptions. It's not the first time a charitable impulse has come back to bite me in the ass.  
We're sitting in the alley behind the bank on a couple old crates left there for smokers and fresh air junkies, and my coffee cup pauses halfway in its trip to my mouth as her question registers. I can feel the tips of my hears getting hot, the curse of the fair, betrayed by my own extremities even when there's nothing to betray. I want to know how a little bank teller I've never seen in my life outside work ~ a financial institution McGee doesn't even bank with ~ and I mean never even caught a glimpse of at any of the venues housing the social scene McGee is part of, knows John McGee.  
“Excuse me?” I say, looking at the paper cup in my hand, wondering if I've been drugged, or if I really heard what I think I just heard.  
Running the tip of her little pink tongue over straight white pearls of teeth, she says, “I just wondered, you know? 'Cause I mean, what you were saying about your girl and your guy, a while back, you said his name was Mac, so I figured what they're saying is true, you know, Mac, McGee, yeah?”  
“Um, Amber ~ wait, who's saying?”  
“But as far as I know, McGee doesn't do women, right?” she asks, but I get the feeling it's a rhetorical question. Her wide eyes are squinty and sly now.  
“No, he doesn't,” I affirm, wondering what the hell she's getting at. “But McGee and I aren't ~”  
“so I”m wondering what your little game is Matt.” She talks right ove rmy protests, standing in front of me now, one hand on her little rounded hip and the other waving the cigarette around as she gestures expansively. She's ready to get in my face and I have no idea why.  
“What little game...?” I begin, but having been raised by two women, I know this isn't the best course of action, and I switch tactics to the tried and true methond of getting a woman off your back.  
“I am so sorry Amber. Um, what are you talking about?”  
That's right. Apologize and play dumb. Not like I have to work at playing dumb. The past 24 hours I've been feeling like I'm playing a role in a movie and everyone has a copy of the script but me.  
“You're trying to fuck with me,” she says, smiling sweetly.  
“I swear to you Amber, I have no idea ~”  
But apparently he doth protest too much, because when, hand still on her hip, she leans down close, probably to make sure I hear every word even though I'm not deaf ~ I think it's another female thing ~ she's not smiling anymore. "I figure it like this, Ace," she says, even closer now. "You heard what I do in my off time, and you thought, if I knew you were into girls too, got on my good side with sweet little stories about your girlfriend and boyfriend, make me think you were confiding in me, that we were friends, you could get a little action on the side for free. But you know what I think? I think your stupid girlfriend's total fiction." Her voice is trembling and her eyes are sheened wet. The tears are genuine, and make me feel like shit, even though as far as I can tell, I haven't done shit.  
"Free? Amber, honey ~"  
"Don't you fucking dare call me honey!" She's jabbing me n the chest with her index finger, and the cherry from the cigarette still held precariously there tumbles into my lap. I yelp and jump to my feet, hop up and down a couple times to get it off me rendering myself completely undignified in the process, and still get a nice round little hole singed through the crotch of my slacks. And she's still going.  
"I thought you were different Matt. I thought you were a good, sweet guy. Then I find out you're with a smarmy little weasel like John McGee, and no one who lies in bed with that can be anywhere close to sweet. So I figure you're just like everyone else, lying to get on my good side, get a little action and then leave me high and dry." Pausing a moment, she looks at me, as if she's waiting for me to defend myself, but I can't keep up with her. I have no idea how we got from free sex to Mari being made-up to me not being a sweet guy because I sleep with McGee ~ I mean, because she thinks I do ~ and nothing comes out my open mouth. And then my time's up.  
She takes a deep breath, ready for the punch line. "But you know what?" She's on her tip toes now, juicy pink lips an inch from my chin as she slings the last of her diatribe right in my face.  
"What?" I squeak, wanting badly to rub the scorched spot on my inner thigh, right next to that bunch of scar tissue from five or six years ago, and wanting just as badly to, once more, ask her what the fuck she's going on about, but I sense now isn't the time for either. Besides, the detached part of my mind tells me, it would be a pity to spoil the show.  
"I don't give anything away for free." She spits on the ground by my feet, turns and stalks away, her little round bum and perky blonde pony tail twitching in time.  
"What the hell?" I mutter under my breath, finally reaching a hand down my pants to soothe the burn with my cold fingers. Of course just then Rashid walks by on his way into work, and I can hear him snickering as he enters through the back door. Beautiful.  
I have no idea what any of this is about, and I decide I'm not going to waste any of today's miniscule supply of mental energy on it right now. Although the anonymous pills a sympathetic Mari handed me this morning when I woke up throbbing from last night's little pity party took away any pain, I feel fuzzy and stupid, like I'm wrapped in a few layers of cheesecloth. Mummified is a good word.  
The fuzz is pretty intense up until lunch, and I just try to relax into my workday rhythm, going through the motions like bank teller droid doll, not bothering to pay attention to anything but my hands and the words coming from the mouths of the people on the other side of the Plexiglas that involve the transactions directly. Just before lunch, the world begins to come back into focus, and I realize I've just said "Have a nice day," to a woman who was telling me all about how her son is in the emergency room up at Harborview after a horrible car accident and she's drawing the last $104.57 out of her savings account, an amount less than she anticipated, because I'd just informed her someone had overdrawn her checking account by $506.78 with three separate transactions in the past 48 hours.  
So I figure I'm just going to use the next hour to veg on the couch in the break room, maybe count the ceiling tiles, run through the times tables to get my brain operating again. But a woman named Casey Day sits down right next to me before I even get to 23. She's a loan officer, and I have no idea why. Rumor is she comes from serious money, and married it too. Every day she comes in perfectly coiffed, not a wrinkle in her designer suit of the day, pearl necklace gleaming. She's probably only in her late 20s, early 30s, but for some reason I can't help but think of her as Ms. Day. She sits sort of sideways on the couch, legs together under a raw silk mauve suit skirt, ankles crossed, places her slender aristocratic hand on my knee. "Matt," she says, a sly smile at the corner of her thin dark pink lips. "You never let on you were gay!" She says it like someone else would say "I never knew you were an artist!" or, "You didn't tell me you got a promotion!" And she has this awful laugh I think she means to be what they call tinkly but ends up sounding more like a pigeon with a head cold. "There go all my adolescent style fantasies. Oh well, my marriage is safe for another month."  
I try to smile at her, to be polite, but probably just come off looking constipated.  
"Anyway, I've got this thing I have to go to next Saturday night, some charity gala for something ~ I can't remember if it's whales or owls or Ethiopian children this time around...the point is, though, I need something new to wear, and I was wondering if you'd like to do lunch this Saturday, and help me find something to wear to this ~"  
I know I have to be staring at her like her nose has turned green, but I can't believe I'm having this conversation ~ or more like, she's having this conversation, as I have yet to say a word. I can't believe anyone this day and age, especially anyone as supposedly socially savvy as Ms. Day should be, can be that naive.  
"Are you mocking me?" It's the first thought that comes to my baffled brain as explanation for her ignorance, and it comes right out my mouth. She looks so startled though at the accusation I feel sorry almost immediately, and pat her hand in consolation, poor ignorant soul. "Sorry Ms., uh, Casey. I don't shop. Ever."  
"Oh." She looks so disappointed I almost offer to go with her anyway, except I hope by then Mac will have come to his senses and begged my forgiveness. "But you're always so nicely dressed," she says. "Oh! Does John pick out your clothes for you?"  
What the hell? Although that's probably better than the truth I reveal without thinking. My cheeks are pink as I say, "No, my mom actually."  
I should use that line more often though. As I recall it worked on April once upon a time, and Casey Day melts into puddle of goo. "That is just too adorable. You are too cute for words. You and John make such a perfect couple." She actually pinches my cheek.  
"Casey, we're not ~" but she's already walking away.  
The whole day keeps on like that. People keep approaching me, congratulating me on my new boyfriend, some even going so far as to congratulate me on coming out, customers and coworkers alike. Up until at least 3 o'clock I try to explain to the all the whole thing's just a huge misunderstanding, but I could just as well be speaking Swahili. No one hears a word.  
I'm closing my window on the way to my last break when I see Amber leaning towards a customer, as if sharing a confidence, and the customer, a regular who usually goes to my window first, looks in my direction with a raised brow and a knowing smile.  
That's what's been going on. That's why this whole rumor stayed relatively quiet all week, and then suddenly, since sometime midmorning, the rest of the world seems to be in on the joke.  
Frantically, I dig in my locker for my cell, and then realize I must have left it at home. For all the days I obediently bring it along with me and never touch it except to cart it from place to place, the one day I actually need it I don't have it. So I slam out the back door, pack of cigarettes in hand, on a mission to find a pay phone. Of course, Murphy's Law strikes again ~ I find it usually applies any time you've got time constraints ~ because by the time I find an operating pay phone with receiver still intact and not covered in unidentifiable gunk, I discover I haven't got a single quarter, let alone two, and buy a coffee in order to procure necessary quarters, my break's mostly over, or at least the clock's run down far enough there's not nearly enough time for McGee to explain my life to me. Insult to injury, of course, I grabbed the wrong cup in my mad dash out of Starbucks and nearly gag on a mouthful of caramel macchiato.  
"You want this?" I proffer the offensive sugary concoction masquerading as coffee to the only other person nearby, who happens to be Rashid.  
"Oooh, yah," he says after examining the black sharpie barista hieroglyphs on the side of the cup. "You no like? Delish." He takes a sip while I straighten my tie in the mirror, then says, "Uh, Matt? I've been sooo meaning to ask you ~"  
"What?" I growl. Rashid is impervious to the menace in my tone.  
"You know your boyfriend's roommate?"  
"Mari?" What does this yahoo want with Mari?"  
Apparently he doesn't hear the query, because he goes on to say, "I was wondering if you could, like, introduce me. He is the most adorable little thing ever and ~"  
Oh. I forget the world is still operating under the misconception McGee and I are an item. How do I forget something like that? Why, the genius of Matt Munroe, of course.  
"Yeah, sure Rashid, whatever." I hope Paulo takes a big old bite out of that fruit cake. Knowing Paulo, he'll be mincemeat inside of a week.  
"Oh goody!"  
Goody? Disgusting.  
I still can't understand what I did to get on the wrong side of Amber, and in the back corner of my mind, I wonder if Rashid can provide any assistance. I can use the Paulo introduction as a bribe. But I decide I don't have the patience to sit through any explanation he could make, and walk away before he can pin me down on the Paulo thing.  
I always thought my strong sense of personal privacy was, if not a good thing, certainly not a bad thing. Maybe it's prevented me from making friends I could have had if I'd only opened up a little more, I've thought from time to time, but I've never been hurt by it before. Today, though, my fortress comes crashing down. The last two hours of work I keep thinking, if only people knew who I was really in a relationship with, I wouldn't be in nearly such a mess. Seattle’s a little city, and Mac's going to hear about his one for sure. In the space of a few short hours, one venomous, big-eyed, busty little blonde viper has spread an initially low-down rumor like a terrorist would scatter anthrax, in carefully packaged parcels of gossip that have run throughout the city like that virus. And the fact is beginning to dawn on my poor fuzzy brain that, totally bewildered by the phenomenon, I've done nothing to stop it. I doubt anyone took my weak, confused denials to heart, when I woke up enough to even attempt one. And you can bet Mac's going to hear that part too.  
The stupidest part of all of it is, the whole mess is two completely separate vendettas, and those of two people I barely know. And while I have a vague idea why George the waiter wanted to stick it to me, which is simply because I'm McGee's friend and he's less than nothing to John, which is something a sensible person would never revenge; the reason behind Amber's viciousness is still a mystery, and the only thing I can come up with is that she thought I lied to her. Or was it that she thought I'd rather date McGee than herself? I'm just confused.  
McGee clears it all up for me when 6o'clock finally rolls around and I sprint to that payphone, quarters jingling in my pocket.  
"McGee, what the fuck is going on?" I nearly shout into the phone as soon as the ringing stops."  
"It's not good, Matty honey."  
"I know it's not good! My life's gone from sunshine to shit in two days!" My voice cracks on that last one.  
"Calm down. We don't know anything specific yet. After all, all we've found out is that someone I know saw Mari buying something at a gun shop in north Seattle with our Mr. Jackson and that ~"  
My mind is reeling. This isn't anything like what I expected to hear. You know when you pick up a cup to take a drink, and you're expecting something like, well, black coffee but instead get a mouthful of caramel macchiato? Your brain, in shock, takes a second to figure out why your coffee doesn't taste like coffee, but your tongue knew what it was expecting and this isn't it. Before your brain realizes what's in our mouth, and that while gross, it's mostly harmless, you've already spat it out all over whatever unfortunate thing or being happened to be in the way of our moth's trajectory path.  
This is what that feels like, except McGee's words aren't essentially harmless. And my brain can't spit them out. Still, it knows I don't want to hear this and my tongue takes whatever action it can.  
"McGee, that's not why I called. You need to know that a lot more people are saying you and I are ~" It takes me a second to spit it out ~ "a couple now. Like, 50 times more people." I'm talking over him, he's spouting some bullshit about a rash of residential robberies in Medina and Mercer Island ~  
"Matt!" he says then, interrupting himself. His tone is enough to get my attention. "I don't happen to care what people are saying about us. Look, doll face, I've done you a favor, sticking my nose into places better left alone for you, risking my own neck asking questions that should not be asked aloud by someone of my reputation so I could get you this information as quickly as possible, because your welfare and happiness depend on it, and all you can do is whine about how horrible it is people think we're in a relationship. Sometimes I don’t even know why I bother."  
The connection goes dead. Great. I've just hurt McGee's feelings, the only friend I've got left on the planet. Slumping against the Plexiglas wall of the phone booth ~ well, it's more of a cubicle really ~ I replace the receiver in its cradle and try to remember what McGee said under my frantic whining. It was something about some number of burglaries in x amount of weeks, disabled alarms, no obvious evidence of break in, two females seen in the vicinity of one ~ how long after?  
The payphone rings in my ear, scaring the shit out of me. Cautiously, I pick it up.  
"Matt?" It's McGee's voice. "Is that you? Are you still there?"  
"Yeah, it's me. I'm sorry John, I was an ass." My voice sounds broken in my ears  
"Yes, you were," His tone is clipped, "but you're distressed, and I said harsh things without taking that into account." His feelings are still bruised though, I can tell.  
"McGee, it's not that the rumors about you and me that's got me all fucked up. It's because Mac believes them."  
"Oh Matty, you didn't get that straightened out last night?" McGee almost never calls me Matty. It sounds weirdly misplaced coming from a mouth that usually spouts pseudo-cultured verbiage.  
“We wasn't in the mood to hear the truth, and when I realized he belived the rumors I wasn't in the mood to tell him.”  
“And what on earth started this rumor explosion? I have to admit, people have been congratulating me on my fabulous catch since lunch. I hated to disabuse them of their fantastical notions ~”  
“McGee!”  
“But of course I did everything I could to aid the truth, which includes outing your relationship with Mac. You do realize, if you hadn't been so reticent with the details of your private life, this never would have happened?” He sounds like a school marm.  
“I'm aware,” I mutter.  
“Well?” he says, and I can picture his right foot tapping out the rhythm of his impatience.  
“It was Amber, I think ~ mostly, anyway. I made her mad this morning, somehow, or something about you and me did...”  
“Who on earth is Amber, Matt my dearest?”  
“Oh, she's a coworker...” I describe her to McGee, and our conversation this morning. “She's the one I was telling you about that night we pissed of George the water, you know, the one who wanted me to ask her out and I told her about Mac and Mari and ~”  
“Shite,” McGee curses. “Balls, bullocks, pissing bloody fucking shite!”  
“Are we British now?”  
“Of all the people you could have ~ did you have to shun Miss Tillie the Teller?”  
“Um, what?” Of course this is my response. These are the most prominent words in my vocabulary today.  
“Oh, Matt Matt Matt. Your little Amber is a very selective, very exclusive, somewhat highly paid call girl ~ working on her college fund, of course, like they all are.” The last half of his statement is tinged with sarcasm.  
“This morning's “conversation” with my little blonde snake becomes, at his words, crystalline. “Aw shit. She thought...” Talk about prey turned huntress. Amber is at the pinnacle of this breed. “What the fuck is she doing working at a bank? Never mind. Ok, you know what?” I take a deep breath, let it out hard, like a physical manifestation of my present intentions. “I'm just going to drop it. I've got to get home and explain all this to Mac. Will you email me what you found out about Mari? It's too much right now. If you try to tell me I won't remember.”  
“Of course dearest. I hope your day goes better. Keep in touch.”

My day does not go better. If my day was hell before this moment, it's now sunk to the seventh level. I'm standing on my front porch, have yet to even open the door, but I've already gotten Mac's reaction to the McGee fiasco. I passed my desk on the walkway, desk chair pushed up neatly under it, pencil holder, my old day planner placed just where I'd left them, lap top open on top, the battery cord dangling behind, as if I'd decided to work in the sunshine for a bit today. Our plaid armchair is at the bottom of the steps, piled with blankets and pillows. There's only a small pathway to the door, the rest of the porch is mounded with black plastic trash bags and cardboard boxes. A stack of framed posters leans against the siding, my Salvador Dali8 on top. My missing cell phone lays abandoned on one of the piles of boxes, which are all inked “books” in sharpie, the handwriting loopy and unfamiliar. Absently, I pick up the phone. Six missed calls, all from McGee. I know he had the best intentions, but shit. I pocket the phone and enter, my feet heavy as lead.  
He's sitting on the couch between Jasmin and a petite, pixie-like androgynous person I can only assume must be Billie. “You can go in through the outside basement door to get the stuff out of your work room,” he says coldly. “We would have packed that too but it's locked.”  
“Lay a finger on anything in that room and die. What the hell is all this?”  
The built-in bookshelf on the far wall is totally empty ~ I'm the only reader in the house ~ and the love seat is angled to fill the chair's missing space. The pictures on the walls are gone too, the ones from my mom and Celeste, though I didn't see them in the piles of all my worldly belongings on the porch, and I wonder what he's done with them, hoping I know him well enough to know he wouldn't hurt them. I'm not sure anymore.  
Mac and Jasmin and Billie are calmly eating cheese and fruit and a concoction that looks like the poo of a sick baby from a tray on the coffee table, watching a redecorating show on TV ~ not Mac's style at all, as much as one thinks it might be by his occupation and OCD. Even though I've joked to the contrary, he's no Martha Stewart. I'm just standing there, waiting for an answer, trying to calm my frantically beating heart.  
Finally, Mac turns his head ever so slightly back in my direction. “You need to leave now.”  
There's the button. I've had enough.  
“Where do you get off, telling me to leave my own house? Last time I checked, it was my name on the lease. I write and mail the rent checks. What the fuck gives you the idea that if anyone's going anywhere, it's going to be me?”  
He stands, places a hand on Jasmin's shoulder as he steps over her knees to get to me. Suspiciously, I wonder if there's something going on between those three. His touch is too caressing for my taste. Five feet away, he stands his ground, arms crossed at his chest. “I just thought,” he begins, and his tone is misleadingly light, “you know, since you were the one fucking around in the first place, you could maybe once be the bigger man and get out of where you're not wanted, instead of making both of us go, right?”  
“Both of us? And by that do you mean you and Mari? Oh hell no. Did you even discuss this with her first? Because last I heard, she knows I didn't do a damn thing. And she, unlike you, didn't even have to question me about it. I haven't laid a finger on McGee in years, and you, you little asshole, should know better.”  
“Yeah Matt, I know what I saw ~”  
“You don't know what the fuck you saw! You don't know shit! And maybe if you got your parsimonious little pale ass off your high horse long enough to actually think shit through, rather than just jumping to conclusions ~” I can't finish though. My voice is starting to break, and I'll not suffer the indignity of tears in front of two strangers whose business this is none of. So I leave through the front door, heading for the back entrance to the basement, as he requested. I take my laptop with me as I pass my desk in the yard. On the way around, I see Mari leaning up against the railing of the back deck. She gives me a little wave, a slight smile.  
“What the fuck, Mar?” I'm looking up at her, like poor stupid Job asking God the same question.  
She only shrugs, and I feel too sick to question her, all I can do is shake my head and slam through the basement door. 

There's a line in the movie “Donnie Darko” in which Drew Barrymore's character claims “cellar door” is the most beautiful phrase in the English language, or something like. Fuck that.  
Of course, she got it from Tolkien, or some other similar source, or rather whomever wrote the script got it there, I guess. It's from a school of thought that some spoken words are intrinsically beautiful, like, for instance, “cellar door” and that some are intrinsically cacophonic. It doesn't matter whether this is the case, because right now, the reality of the cellar door, and why it's slamming behind me, is one of the ugliest truths I've ever encountered.  
People are like that though. For instance, the smells of my workroom are usually soothing, the smell of freshly cut wood almost euphoric in certain moments. Now they grate against my senses, and this is all besides the fact I left a can of varnish open and the window closed, and the fumes begin to go to my head almost immediately. Just like one day, I can be the center of a person's world, and the next, I'm nothing, according to the void in his eye. Nothing is intrinsic, or inherent, when it comes to human thought and behavior.  
The quiet of my basement workplace is gone as well, at the moment. Mac and his little girlfriends are playing something repetitively bassy at high volume, and I can feel it in the walls and hear it coming through the vents. It adds a certain measured tone to the sense of surreality that's enveloped me since coming home to find my desk on the front walkway.  
The practical part of me is numb to everything going on. I know, from that side of my brain, I'm still going to eat, to piss, to smoke like a fiend; I will go to work tomorrow and power through the day wearing a smile and a neck tie, counting out bills and explaining overdraft fees like any other day. Not all that much has changed. Then, of course, you've got the emotional side of Matt, pounding on the wall between the two, shouting that the sky is falling. This is the side of Matt who happens to be squeezing Hal the Pike Place busker in his right hand so tightly the bill of Hal's ball cap's bitten into the right palm deep enough to draw blood. I think I've snapped a piece off Hal. Without looking, I force my fingers to relax and deposit him on the work bench, wipe my damp red palm on my slacks and sit on the red wooden stool in the corner rubbing my eyes with the balls of my hands. I can't face anything else broken today. That part of Matt, the shouting, pounding Matt, besides being bewildered and angry, is stuck in a state of disbelief, and the sane, rational, tie-wearing Matt is trying to convince him that yes, his life really has gone to hell in about 24 hours, but that really, it could be worse, because after all, it is our name on the lease ~ I mean my name ~ I still have a job and ~ and the Matt who is just now howling in agony is saying shut up shut up shut up because all of us know if it really came down to it, we would give Mac the damn house, and probably still make the rent payments for him too.  
And apparently, it has come down to it.  
Although by the sound of feminine giggles drifting down through the ventilation system, I could probably stay holed up in this basement room forever and he'd never know the difference. He never comes down here except to see me anyway.  
There's no quick fix for something like this. Half an 18 pack didn't help worth a damn last night, talking it out with anyone but Mac's not going to help and Mac's obviously not in the mood to talk. What I want is Mari to grab onto, again, but I”m still lost in that friendly little smile and wave she gave as I descended into the hell of the basement, alone. Why didn't she stop him? Mac would've listened to her. Mac always listens to Mari. She knows I haven't done a thing to deserve any of this.  
And come down to that, Mac usually listens to me too, at least enough to get the gist of where I'm coming from on something. He's always the first to want to talk things through, and maybe that's what's been bugging me most at the back of all this. None of this rings like reality.  
I almost light a cigarette before realizing here's not the best place for fire. Instead, I push open the small, cross-paned window that sits at ground level, trying to suck in some air, and slide down along the wall to crouch on the floor, head on my knees in my hands.  
I must've nodded off for a while, or slipped into some timeless daze, still too intent on my internal war to budge. It must be after nine o'clock when I remember where I am, because twilight's filled my small (former) haven, tables, tools and half-done projects merging with and becoming shadows, and the relentless bass of Nine Inch Nails has stopped, and I can hear voices filtering through the old house's vents now undistorted by background noise. On hand and knees I crawl through the sawdust, and it sticks to my right palm, which must still be oozing a little. With my ear against the grate, I can make out words.  
“...Better this way.” That's Mac, sounding belligerent.  
“You've ripped him right the fuck in half! I can't even look at his face.” That's Mari, though as familiar as that voice is to me, it takes me a second to pin it. It's the closest I've ever heard her come to shrill.  
“Hell, for all I've heard today he probably really is fucking around with John McGee!” Yep, definitely belligerent, and by the lit to his words, on his way to drunk.  
“You know you don't really believe that.” I can't tell if she's been drinking too.  
Wait ~ he doesn't?  
“I did...for a second anyway.” There's a moment of silence, then he's pleading with her. “Mar, it was the only thing I could do, could think of, to get him out of the way. Like God dropped this situation right in our laps, so we could make a clean break from him.”  
“That's sick, Mac. And it's a far cry from clean.”  
No, I'm about to be sick. I can feel swe3at beading on my forehead, swallow hard, trying to clear the bile bubbling up and burning my throat. I lean back against the wall, gasping to get clean air into my lungs, but all there is is the cloying sweetness of wood shavings and varnish.  
“So maybe not clean, but at least it's fast, yeah? Like ripping off a band aid or something. Hurts real bad for a sec, but that goes away. Better than getting him into this shit. That hurt, if it comes down, it's not gonna go away so soon. It's better than what you did. I was hoping it wouldn't go this far,that' we wouldn't have to do something like this, but you were the one who let him follow you the other day. You were the one who brought Ajax into this house ~”  
“What's your point, Mac?”  
Something breaks. I can hear the high pitched shatter of crystal even through the ringing in my ears. Someone threw something, and my money's on mac.  
“He's not going to be involved in this!” After the initial shouted outburst, his voice fades to a low growl. I can imagine him pacing, as he says, “Over my dead body am I gonna let anyone touch him. He's not like us Mari, he doesn't come from the same place as us and it's gonna fucking stay that way!” I can hear his foot hit the ground in that childish way of stomping he has sometimes when emphasizing a point. I can picture his arms slashing through the air, decisive, like an umpire calling safe.  
“So maybe we should just quit?” Her words are so quiet I'm not even sure that's what she said. I can imagine her face though, that pale blank smooth mask she wears sometimes like I imagine a harlequin must be before it's painted.  
I hear the sound of chair legs scraping across the floor, in my mind's eye see him collapse onto it, looking like he's half about to fall out, one foot raised and pushing against the edge of the table, rocking himself back and forth. Mac doesn't have the same respect for kitchen furniture as he does for that of the living room. The kitchen is for playing in.  
“I said that a month ago,” he says finally. The anger's seeped out of his voice, leaving an exhausted whisper, like a hasp on ash.  
“It's too late now.”  
“I know.”  
“I need him Mac.”  
“Tough shit. I'm gonna have to be enough.” The edge is back, it's Mac's 'don't fuck with me' voice, and though Mari's usually the only one who will cross that line, tonight she only sighs, a heavy sound. Apparently, the conversation is over, because after a moment I hear the measured light tap tap of Mari's boot heels across the linoleum, the old heavy wooden kitchen door swinging on hits hinges. I let out a breath of my own. It's full dark now, and my hands are barely shadows before my face. For all the clever little things they can do ~ paint a picture, sculpt a figure, catch a football, jot neat and even figures in a ledger ~ they seem like useless hunks of meat at the moment.  
I hear the sound of water running, the clink of cutlery, muffled clatter of glass on glass. Mac's washing up. How typical. There could be a confirmed hostile extraterrestrial attack looming imminent and Mac would still wash up.  
Then he's turned on that Bose thing he keeps on the back counter, because the sultry, lonely warble of Edith Piaf's soars down the vent, lamenting something in words I can't decipher, but that I still understand all too well.  
I lay back against the floor in the sawdust, fold my hands over my belly, feeling empty, spent.


	13. Chapter 13

THIRTEEN  
In carrying on with a theme: You can probably tell by now I like movies. I'm no film buff though. If I had my way, I'd go to a good old fashioned multiplex, spend too much money on popcorn and milk duds, and watch Hollywood blow shit up, shoot people from impossible angles in unrealistic scenarios, and make improbably beautiful people fall in love and live unrealistically happy lives forever after. I’ve never gone for the art and indie things, like Mari and Mac, and even McGee. I watch movies to escape reality, not to be shown the sharp edge of it, or to be plunged into total surreality.   
This morning is an evil combination of both: the hard cold floor beneath my back and the fact Ive fallen asleep on it. If this were a movie, you'd have to pay me to see it.   
And speaking of sleep: you know how sometimes, if you have some issue you're trying to work out, some decision you have to make, some predictable dumbass will tell you to sleep on it? Well, all clichés aside, it really does work sometimes. The theory is, if you go to sleep with some trouble on your mind, while the body rests the brain will formulate some solution or insight to the problem at hand, or else you'll be rested enough to be more capable of dealing with the shit upon waking. I know this from experience, it's happened to me before. Once, I was working on a carving of this old scruffy mutt I used to see when I was jogging around Greenlake. I got him fine in my initial sketches. he reminded me of a retired general: old, craggy, commanding, and riddled with battle scars. The actual carving proved to be a bitch though. Every cut I made came out too smooth, he was too polished, he was looking more like a retired show dog than a mutt who'd taken life by the scruff of its neck tight in his jaws and shook it hard it till it gave up. Finally frustrated all to hell, the hunk of wood whittled down to almost nothing, I tossed it in the scrap heap and put away my sketches, cleaned up my tools and abandoned the basement. I had a bowl of ice cream and a beer to simmer down over and went to bed.   
It was around 5am I sat bolt upright in bed, like in the movies when the actor's supposed to have had a nightmare or something. This was no nightmare though, it was a fucking epiphany. I'd been an idiot to try to carve general mutt in [type of wood] ~ yeah, the color was perfect, but it was too soft and malleable for what he was. I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and lumbered down to the basement right then. There was a piece of [wood] in my wood pile. It turned out to be one of the better pieces I've done lately.   
Of course, that's only worked for me that once. The rest of the time, I just end up banging my head against the wall until everything that's messed up up there falls into the right order, or until I end u with a massive headache.   
So, this morning, realizing my back is up against a cement floor and has been all night, none of the three thoughts in my head come close to explaining the partial conversation that filtered through the ventilation system last night. First, I'm thinking, It's utterly unfair I wake up feeling hung over when I've done nothing to aid the state. Second is the knowledge that a cement floor, even covered in sawdust, is vastly more uncomfortable than even a bed trying to imitate a lake. Third ~ and this realization comes as I open my eyes to a blinding glare, after shifting around on the hard cold floor I'd made my bed last night and discovering the first two things ~ third is that the sun is far too bright to be anything like as early as I need it to be if I were going to be on time for work.  
I fell asleep last night almost in the position one would assume to do sit-ups or crunches, on my back with knees bent and fingers laced behind my head, and i stayed that way all night, so it's only with quite a lot of pain I manage to un-kink and get my poor abused body off the floor. Only going on 24 and I feel like an arthritic old man. That I left the window open doesn't help matters either. Though the days and nights are warmer now, it's still spring and the mornings are cold, and therefore I'm cold too.   
I pull my cell from my pocket where I stuck it last night, to check the time, but it's dead. I sort of want to curl back up on the floor again, but I suck it up and carry my laptop upstairs. If I’m about to lose everything else, I'd rather not lose my job along with the rest. The house is empty now except for me, and seems emptier without my stuff in it. there are holes where my things were. I never realized how much and how little I owned until I saw it all concentrated into a pile on the front steps, and see now the empty spaces it makes in the house as I walk through it: the spot of bare floor where the old plaid armchair sat, the back of the couch blank, rather than hung with Celeste's crappy quilting attempt. A peek out the window confirms my stuff is all still there, piled lonely on the lawn and porch.   
"Sunshine to shit," I told McGee yesterday, and that pretty much sums it up. My life, despite the bit of turbulence I've experienced lately, was pretty close to perfect by Matty Munroe standards, or anyone's, I would think. I had a decent job, time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life in the long run, if anything different at all, two people I loved more than anyone, anything, always in close proximity... And I still don't know, speaking of those two, what the hell to make of the partial conversation I heard spoken between them last night. The words run through my head as I stare through the glare on the window. "He's not like us..." What the fuck is that supposed to mean anyway? I thought we were together because we were the only ones like us. But a lot of things I thought have lately turned out to be false assumptions, I guess.   
Usually, a week starts out like a young wine or cheese, that is, a little sour, a little rough on the stomach, but still tasting faintly of the promise of becoming something better, and fulfilling that promise with time. This week, however, is more like a vegan cookie. It started out a little hard and unappetizing, and seems to be getting harder and more distasteful with every passing hour. It's only barely Wednesday, and already this week's so hard if I threw it against the ground it would shatter.   
I pick up the phone, bite the bullet as they say, dial work, prepared to kiss Meagan's ass and beg for my job. 

Staring at myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, speckled with sawdust, covered in grime, smeared with blood, I try to swim in riptides of disbelief. How am I here?  
And then I know, surer than anything, the "how" or "why" of it doesn't make a fucking bit of difference, because the fact is, I am here. Mac suddenly, inexplicably, doesn't give a shit about me. Or, I guess, gives too much of a shit about shit that never should have mattered. And disregarding the years of love and friendship between us, has kicked me to the curb for an instance of imagined infidelity and his fucking reputation. Best friend my ass. For a bare moment, his cryptic words of the night before, heard echoingly through the vent, crowd against my resolve, but I quash all qualms. ("Not like us" anyway, he said, well fuck them anyway.) It is what it is, and whatever his reasons, I can't fight it. You can't walk away from the impact of a freight train hit like that. And for whatever reason, against whatever truths she knows, Mari's siding with him on this. And fuck it all, it was them together in the beginning, before I walked into the old firing range building alone that day, the day of my first rifle club meeting; it was them together in the middle, when I went away to school and left home the first time; so let them be together now, all by their fucked up little selves.   
Viciously, I kick the door. the mirror falls to the floor, cracking jaggedly at the bottom corner. I hop on one foot, hissing through my teeth. Always think about what shoes you're wearing before lashing out at solidly immovable objects.   
I wander into Meagan's office around 12:30pm. she'd said she wanted to talk to me before I started my truncated shift, which I'd only expected, and which was more than fair. I expected to be laid into like a piece of meat with a mallet, and come out looking like a cube steak actually.   
Instead, she looked up from some paperwork she was jotting notes on, and her brow furrows. "Matt, sit down. Why the hell are you here?"  
Rather than sitting, I shake my head helplessly. "I thought you said you wanted to see me. You told me to come in be~"  
"That's not what I mean. You look even worse than you did when I sent you home with the flu a couple weeks ago."  
I actually thought I looked at least ok, when I gave myself a quick once over before leaving for work with my duffle bag and my laptop case sling over my shoulders, perhaps like a slightly harried young business travel, stepping jauntily out the door...for good.   
"I swear I'm not sick, I ~"  
"Didn't just sleep in, Matt. I know bullshit when I hear it. It's got something to do with these rumors I keep hearing whispered around yesterday and this morning about you, doesn't it?" Meagan's cool blue eyes drill holes right through me. My cheeks are getting hot, and I sit down heavily.   
"Mac does know they're all just rumors, right?" she presses.   
"Wha ~?" Excuse me for being slightly flabbergasted here, but If I don't talk about my home life to my coworkers, I sure as hell don't get personal with my boss, and I know she talked to Mac that time I was sick, but he's not really one to talk about his business with strangers either, so I don't see how she would have thought he was anything but a roommate.   
her mouth quirks up just the slightest bit at the corner. "Sorry," she says. "I know a lot more about you than I ever let on. Your mom ~ Celeste, I mean ~ and I have been friends for years. We went to the UW together."  
You're kidding, right? I'm thinking. I know this job isn't much, but I was pretty proud of the fact I got here on my own, was finally able to support myself on my own, for the first time in my life. Now I have no idea if I even belong here at all, considering my mother and the boss are all chummy. Just like the good ol' boy network, in the small town I came from. No place is ever really different, deep down, despite the size or the dressing.   
"Matty?"  
"Truth?" I say, snapping out of it, snapping back, harsher than I mean to sound, harsher than I feel, because all the surety I felt earlier has slipped away and I'm lost again, "Mac kicked me out last night. I ended up sleeping in the basement, so I guess technically, it was bullshit about sleeping through my alarm, because there wasn't an alarm down there to sleep through."  
If possible, Meagan's already ramrod straight posture straightens further at her surprise. "MAC kicked you out? Seriously? I always got the impression, from Celeste, he was the dependa ~ never mind. I'm sorry. What about Mari?"  
Is nothing sacred? I answered anyway. "Won't talk to me." And I shrug, as if literally trying to roll the whole mess off my shoulders.   
"Do your moms know?"  
I smile. My face feels tight. "They will when I show up like a refugee on their porch tonight, after work, with my suitcase."  
I packed light. The one duffle and my laptop are all I intend to take with me ~ the clothes I regularly wear to work, clothes for the gym, a couple pairs of jeans and a few tee shirts. It's not because I'm waiting out Mac's banishment, I'm not trying to call any bluff. I know he's not bluffing. I don't give a shit about any of that other stuff, the stuff I left behind. I left my work room unlocked. I felt kind of unencumbered, sort of light when I left it all behind me on the porch, on the lawn, just drove away. More like light headed, Munroe.   
Without them, none of it matters anyway. I'll figure out something else to do, to be, eventually, though it's not real high on my to-do list. Not that I have a to do list.   
"Matt, you don't look ok at all," Meagan breaks through my reverie. "You're talking to yourself."  
Shit, was I? "I swear I'm fine."  
Meagan shakes her head. "Fine. If you're sure you can work, go to work. Just don't let me hear about you fucking up out there. I gave you the chance to take a day, regroup."  
"I'm fine," I repeat, standing. "Sorry again about this morning, and thanks for understanding."  
She just watches me leave silently, her face scrunched up. As I leave her office to go clock in, out of the corner of my eye I catch her picking up the phone. She doesn't have her business face on, her brows are drawn together, her lips pursed, like a worried mother. I don't need another mother, I've already got two. I know she's calling Celeste.   
I decide I don't care.   
When I clock off five hours later, it's with the knowledge I didn't make a damn mistake all day ~ till on to the penny, every slip of paper and receipt in order, every customer helped with a smile and appropriate small conversation for each transaction and mood. Like a well-oiled machine, I tell you. I haven't lost anything but that fucking waste of an idyllic interlude playing house, I've still got it, I can still hold my own, and fuck Celeste and her stupid friends and their motherly gossip anyway.   
Ok, I didn't really mean that last part. But hell, Celeste, you could've said something, rather than leave your son feeling like a baby and an idiot when he finds out you and his boss are ~  
"Matty," she says, opening the door, looking too surprised to see me and my baggage. I guess I should've given Meagan more credit. At least one woman in this town knows how to keep her mouth shut. "What's with the luggage? Did something happen to your house? Oh my god child, did you get evicted? I knew the rent on that place was too much. Where are Mac and Mari?"  
"I'd guess he got evicted," Mom says dryly over Celeste's head, her eyes taking me in in one penetrating mother stare. "And I'm guessing it had nothing to do with the land lord." She takes Celeste by the shoulders and moves her aside. For a moment, I'm afraid she's going to try to hug me, but she only takes my bag. "Don't just stand there. You're letting the air conditioning out."   
Of course, there's no point telling your mother how much you don't care. She already knows, always. 

The thing about a hammock is, it's always there for you. And if it dumps you, well, you just climb back on it and show it who's boss. A hammock expects this of you. A hammock also never cares how many beers you happen to drink. It doesn't matter how many crumpled, empty cans you drop underneath it, it never minds the mess and if you're not counting, neither is it. A hammock never leaves you in the middle of a comfortable nap (as long as you're not prone to tossing and turning, neither is it) and it doesn't care whom you invite to join you in its company. Fuck dogs, a hammock is a man's best friend. 

"Matthias? There's someone here to see you." I'm lolling in my mothers' backyard hammock, a can of Natural Ice resting on my stomach, listening to the nothing in particular sounds of outsideness on a Sunday afternoon. The past week and a half, this is where I can be found, consistently, when I'm not at work.   
"Matthias? Your full name is Matthias? How was I not aware of this?"  
It's McGee's voice, interrupting my Sunday white noise beer muzzy solitude. I squinch my eyes shut tighter, hoping if I'm still enough, if I don't make eye contact, he’ll lose interest and go away, like my mother.   
I can hear her retreat, faintly, her customary long-legged unhurried strides dragging her pant legs with a faint rustling through the longish backyard grass, leaving her annoyance with me reverberating in the air behind her, her terse words buzzing, like an echo, like tinnitus, over and over in my skull.  
"Why have you let me go on thinking of you as Matthew all this time? I can see Matthias though. It makes sense. Matt, a very ordinary name, and you seem so ordinary on the surface. Matthias is different, and behind your mundane facade so are ~"  
"McGee, you're babbling," I comment without opening my eyes.   
"Oh Matt, or I should say, Matthias, you know I babble all the time, I ~"  
"No, you carry on at length, often, but you don't babble." Finally, I open my eyes. It seems to take a great amount of effort to lift these heavy, sandpaper lids the slit I've managed, but I manage it. It's late afternoon, and the sun's moved to the west, shines behind him, giving him a shadowy, silhouette-ish appearance and causing my squinting eyes to water a little. Standing there beside the hammock, about two feet away, he's looking awkward. He doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands, which is odd, because McGee is never awkward. It's one of the things ~ the main thing, really ~ that makes him so attractive, his surety. Every move McGee makes is deliberate and correct, but now he stands shifting from foot to foot, his hands clasped tightly in front, then one in his pocket, then both together again, but in back now, shift shift, left right ~  
I yawn, and my jaw cracks. Slowly, so as not to tip the hammock, I raise to sitting, one hand on my beer, so as not to tip that either; swing my legs over the side, the cool green grass tickling my bare feet, stand and stretch, my back arched, arms raised high. Now lots of things pop, and it feels nice, almost as nice as laying back down might, but something is wrong with my friend McGee, and if I can find out what it is and help, I probably should, so I force my eyes open after the head rush has passed and curve my lips upward, for his eyes to see.   
For some reason, this makes McGee even more uneasy, or something does. He leans down and picks up a warped paperback from the ground. "What's this? Siddhartha?"  
I picked it up a few days ago when I ducked into Barnes and Noble on impulse one day after work. I hadn't read it since high school English, but I remembered liking it quite a bit, more for the mood it put me in than anything else: precise, peaceful, orderly, as if everything in the world has its proper place and time, and if I only sat still long enough, everything would fall into those places as they should. Since I bought the book, I've read it about a dozen times (it's not all that long) and it lives under the hammock with the beer cans. It looks years old instead of days as a result of constant handling, and even mild weather is hell on paper.   
McGee's question can answer itself, the title of the book is written plain on cover, flyleaf and spine, so I leave it and lumber over to one of two wooden lawn chairs under the tree, lower myself carefully into it, place the beer can on the arm with precision, fold my hands in my lap.   
McGee's eye on me is wary, as if keeping watch on a wild dog, a feral kitten, and, probably unconsciously, he makes a wide arc around myself to get to the chair on the other side of me, sits, still holding the book, his thumb fanning the edges of the pages over and over.   
"Your mother's gorgeous, Matt. You look just like her. I didn't realize she was that painter ~ you've never introduced us, or spoken of her," he says, searching for conversation, and normally I would acknowledge the compliment, I love my mother and I'm proud of her, but this is just small talk, which I'm not in the mood for. McGee's come here for some other purpose, and I'd like him to spit it out, so we can fix it and he can be on his way.   
"So what's up John? What's the matter?"  
He gives me this incredulous look, like I've just said something profane or idiotic, in backwards pig-latin Arabic.   
"Matt, I'M fine. It's you who has the issues."  
"Issues? What do you mean, I have issues? I don't have issues. I'm quite content, actually." I take a delicate sip of my beer, which is now luke warm from the sun and my body heat.   
"I knew you were going to make this difficult," McGee mutters. I want to point out it doesn't have to be difficult at all, all he has to do to avoid difficulty is to keep his mouth shut and leave, but I always try to recognize and abide by words of wisdom, so I follow my own advice and say nothing. Maybe if I keep nodding and smiling, he'll talk himself out and go away, like my mothers did, eventually.   
John McGee, however, is more tenacious than either of those formidable women, and I should have noted this fact before ever opening my eyes. I should've stayed passed-out drunk on my happy little hammock. "I stopped by your house," says, by way of a beginning.   
"I noticed," I confirm serenely. "You are, after all, still here."  
Commendably, he keeps his exasperation in check. "I meant your real house. I rescued your things last week. Mari called me. She said you weren't answering your cell," (I let it die and never recharged it) "and you won't come to the phone when she calls your moms' house. She and Mac just left it all outside."  
"Wait, MARI cal ~" I quell the thought immediately, squelch it dead, attempt to eradicate the image of the dark pools of her eyes that arrived in my brain at the sound of her name, but they seem burned there. I'm agitated now, trying to grasp for the peaceful void I'd held onto for so many hours before fucking John McGee rattled it away. "Never mind," I say, striving hard, failing, "I don't want it. I'm sorry you went to the trouble."  
"Matt," he says urgently, leaning forward in his char, that damn pathetic looking book still in his hands, "you can't just stay here hiding at your moms' house forever."  
"I know," I snap irritably, any pretense of the peace I'd assumed totally gone now. "I'm only here till I save up deposits, first and last, all that shit, you know..." I put the beer can to my lips again but the warm sour smell assaults my senses in a bad way now, and I toss the can aside. McGee's eyes follow its trajectory automatically, before he glares back at me.   
"And what did you think of what I emailed you Matt? You never replied."  
"Email?" My thoughts travel back, to further back than I've thought in a while, because lately the farthest back I've let myself remember is to the last time I showered, or ate, or pissed, and only that to keep on top of things, top keep up on those things others seem to think necessary, in order to keep them all off my back, which is my only current necessity. Unfortunately, that far back dips into nightmare time, and involuntarily, I shudder, turn away from the image of Mac's profile wreathed in cigar smoke, the golden glow of sunset on the liquor in the snifter he brought to his lips as he ignored me. But I do recall the email McGee is speaking of, something he said he'd send, something about Mari and some idiot named Ajax, guns and other troubles. "I never read it," I confess. "I haven't checked my personal email in days."  
"Well you should," McGee says seriously. "You really, really should. I think you'll regret it if you don't. Soon." He stands then, comes to kneel in front of me. "Matt, darling," he says, oh-so-gentle now, one hand on my knee, "just go back to them. Swallow your pride, tell them the truth, beg, plead ~"  
"McGee, no."  
"You know I fucking despise the pair of them, but it's hurting me to see you like this. Please Matty. I know you'll never get better unless you try."  
"There's nothing to get better. I'm fine." But I turn my head away. My face is hot. I’m embarrassed for both of us ~ for him, for the soft underbelly of himself he's exposed to me again that I never wanted to see; for me, that I've worked myself into enough of a state he felt he had to ~ was able to ~ reveal it to me. He turns my face back to him with both hands, leans up and kisses me, softly, on the mouth. It's not sexual at all, though I remember, somewhat guiltily, at the feeling of his lips on mine, a time when it would have been, our first kisses. This kiss is more like a blessing, a benediction.   
"I'm going now," he says. "Call me if you need me." He sets the book, finally, back on the ground.   
I nod. I can sense, can hear his departure, but I can only stare at my hands. My throat is tight, my eyes burn, my sinuses are pounding. I stand and walk to the cooler by the hammock, fish out another beer, the sound of the tab cracking the can open too loud in my ears. I stare at it for a moment, listen to the crackle rush pop of the carbonation rising to escape, a faint hiss that at the moment seems a roar. It's like a revelation. I know I don't really want it, but I put it to my lips, gulp some down anyway, like medicine. It comes right back up, along with the bile of an empty stomach that burns my throat, stings my nostrils. Wiping my mouth on the back of my arm, I leave my eyes and nose to run, curl up into a ball on the hammock, on my side, knees to my chest, arms clasped around me to hold my insides in, and watch the sun until it sets.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry Paulo talks like a racist stereotype. I was pretty young when I wrote him.

"OH FOURTEEN, MAY YOU GO SOFTER THAN THIRTEEN, AND EASY..."

Monday morning, 10 o'clock, and I've discovered Mondays don't suck so hard now I've shut everything off. Sometimes, I think if I look carefully enough, I could find anyone's on/off switch. Every morning, on my way to work this past week and a half, I flip the switch to on: this is not to say this is the on button to feeling shit, I'd like to think I've flicked that fucker off for good (though there are times, like last night with McGee, it's a struggle to go on thinking so). This is the performance switch I speak of. The minute I walk into that bank, I'm happy, productive, cheerful, willing and efficient right up until six. Any remarks, from good-natured ribbing up through nasty and snide are taken with a brightly stupid smile and no explanation whatsoever. After all, I've been dodging and ducking questions, pointed or roundabout, about my awkward life since childhood. The only person who knows a damn thing was ever wrong is Meagan, and that's only because of and through Celeste, and she never brings it up, though I catch her giving me these long, searching looks every once in a while. "Yes, Meagan," I want to say, "all present and accounted for, no missing pieces, here on time every day doing my job in perfect order, no need to look at me as if..."  
But I keep my mouth shut, stupid bright smile pasted on, move on.  
It's a little harder today to keep up the voltage of my smiles, because of McGee's visit last night. I know I have to read his damn email. I've come to see, since McGee's gentle verbal lashing last night, that the show I've been putting on at work isn't quite enough, that I've got to put in a little more effort, because there are other important people in my life besides the two unmentionables, and I haven't been fair to them. That considered, I called McGee on my first break, casually as possible, and asked where we were meeting tonight. "It is Monday, right?" I pointed out at his uncharacteristic stutter, and agreed to pick up Paulo for him, as there was a study meeting he claimed he had to attend after his last class.  
So now I'm at my window, waiting out a mid-morning lull, trying not to dread this evening, when a little ponytail girl comes up to my window, wearing an SPU sweatshirt and tugging a tall, weedy gay boy behind her. Normally, a random, lone customer intruding on the scarce chance for a mental break like this would annoy me, but life ceased to be normal about two weeks ago, and I welcome the distraction. The guy looks slightly familiar, but I brush it off as a common occurrence. You live in a place like this long enough and half the people you meet look like someone you've seen before, because you probably have seen them around before.  
"I need to make a withdrawal," she says, and pushes the slip through the pass-through. The amount requested is $8.75. I shrug. College student, I figure, probably a freshman, maybe that's all that's left in her account till her next work study check, financial aid check, or automatic savings deposit from mommy and/or daddy. The amount in her checking account, however, far exceeds my own. Hell, it exceeds mine, Mac's and Mari's lumped together probably. The little girl's got a few grand stashed away, and she's withdrawing $8.75.  
"In quarters please," she says primly.  
Her companion raises an eyebrow. "The important trip to the bank you just had to make was for laundry money. Princess, couldn't we have just scoured your roommate's purse collection and the couches in the lounge for change?"  
She rolls her eyes.  
"At least make it easy on the poor bank man and take out a roll."  
She rolls her eyes again. "Then I'd have five quarters jingling around in my pockets I don't need," she says, as if this fact should have been totally obvious to her friend. But she smiles very sweetly at me when I hand over her 35 quarters and says, "Thank you very much for humoring me. Have a good rest of your day," and adds, "Matt" after a quick glance at my name plate.  
"Good laundering," I reply, and her smile widens to an unselfconscious grin. Back in the day, she was the kind of girl I wouldn't lay a finger on, and not because I wasn't attracted. That kind of girl, so unspoiled seeming, it makes a guy paranoid he'll leave prints. You handle that sort carefully, like a new CD, or Mom's collection of blown glass, and I've always been afraid I wouldn't have the patience for something so fragile. Now, as I watch her ponytail bobbing after her friend, I kind of wish I had the guts to ask if I can buy her coffee. I need something clean, something fresh. The thought surprises me.  
The lull in traffic broken only by ponytail and her bean sprout friend, I take the moment of relative leisure to enjoy the view, and notice Rashid has stopped on a trip across the lobby from the information desk to talk to ponytail's friend. The acoustics out there are pretty echoey, so much so that a lot of the women who wear heels tend to walk on tiptoe across the floor's tiled surface to avoid the racket ~ or wear heels, specifically, because of the attention that racket draws to them, if they're that sort. And I have to admit, the staccato of stilettos across a hard floor can be pretty damn sexy coming from the right sort of feet, attached to the right length and shape of female.  
Rashid is looking in my direction as he talks to the guy, and I sigh. After two weeks, I'm not the hottest topic of conversation anymore, but I do occasionally still come up.  
"That's just Johnny's wishful thinking." The words travel across the emptyish space to sound faintly against my ear drums, and that certain way of saying "Johnny" rings, if not a bell, at least the triangle. "That boy is SO not gay, and I know he's not really Johnny's boyfriend. I just said some shit one night when I was drunk and pissed off." He waves it away, the destruction of my reputation, with one limp wrist flick as if it were nothing, while Ponytail waits for him, playing with her quarters, looking bored.  
"George!" Rashid squeals, pretending to be shocked. "So wait, he's not gay?"  
I feel, surprisingly...nothing at this revelation.  
Why, by the way, are all my revelations coming to me lately through conversations overheard and eavesdropped upon?  
"As far as I'm concerned, that boy never had a closet to come out of. He is so not gay. He's a fucking jock, my god. Even has this skinny little bitch girlfriend stashed behind a picket fence in the central district. As far as I'm concerned, blondie's just a poser and John McGee needs to get the fuck over it."  
Absently, I wonder how Mari would take to being "stashed" someplace ~ or to being called anyone's "skinny little bitch girlfriend" for that matter, especially mine.  
"George, you sound like a bitter old hag," Ponytail interrupts and yawns. "It sounds like someone besides John McGee needs to get the fuck over something. Now, I've got a date with a washing machine so I can sleep in clean pajamas tonight and if you want me to wash that new shirt like you've been whining about in time for going out tonight you'd better be coming with. Bye Rashid," she adds as an afterthought as she pulls George by the shirtsleeve after her. 

Things take a while to process sometimes. You input the data, start the download, but you've got to restart before the new settings take effect. Maybe this is another purpose of "sleeping on it." And last night, I slept, hard, woke up covered in dew and freezing. It seems ideal to spend the better part of one's day lying in a hammock, but after nearly two weeks of it, I'd assumed my mind had begun to petrify.  
The mind is a funny thing though. As much as you might think you're the master of yours, as far as you might assume you've told it to lie down and stay, expect it to do your bidding, it gets right up behind your back and starts sniffing around at things when you're not looking, and the second you turn back around, it drops pleased at your feet the results of its twilight hunting.  
And so slowly, as the day closes, I realize my mind was never even close to petrified. Everything I thought I haven't thought about, on purpose, for days, is running through and through my mind like a greyhound chasing a rabbit around a track ~ or wait, in this analogy, my mind is the greyhound, and the rabbit's what's up with Mac and Mari, right? "But if that's the case, what is the track?" I like everything to fit in an analogy. And so maybe it's still a little rusty up there.  
"Matty my friend, what the hell are you talking about?" Paulo says from across the table, fruity beverage paused halfway to his lips. We're at the Broadway grill again, later than usual, both the time and the venue my choice. McGee, oddly, is running late.  
"Nothing...nothing yet, anyway," I say, lighting a cigarette. I'm in no way ready to articulate yet what's stewing up there under my hat.  
"Well, ok," Paulo says, giving me the eye for a moment before tossing back the rest of his drink.  
The other thing that's bugging me though, that's perfectly safe to talk about around Paulo ~ in fact, as a fairly impartial third party, who nonetheless knows me fairly well, he's probably the perfect one to discuss it with. "Paulo?" I begin, stubbing out my butt and picking up my beer. The cold condensation on the glass feels good on my fingers. He eyes me expectantly ~ as I said, he knows me well enough after the past couple years of trailing after McGee with me, and I think he's more observant than he seems sometimes. He's noticed I'm Not Quite Right tonight, even if compared to the past couple weeks this frame of mind and mood at the moment is practically aces.  
"Yes chico?" He prompts, pushing his spent cocktail up and over, waiting patiently for me to continue, as my mind's toddled off again.  
I flip through the lobby conversation overheard and filed a few hours previously, stashed carefully away in my mind with everything else about these past couple months, ready for careful perusal, examination, deciphering, when the time is right, when I have more fucking pieces to fill in these gaping holes. I'm searching for exactly what it was George the disgruntled waiter said. "Do you think I'm a not-gay poser?"  
Paulo grins at me, delighted with me for some reason, as our waitress sweeps by to scoop up Paulo's empty glass and deposit a full one in its place. (She must expect McGee to join us soon, as generally the service here is somewhat meandering at best.) "Oh Matty," he laughs. "Chico, you are SO not gay."  
I'm not sure what sort of answer I was looking for, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. I think maybe I was looking for reassurance and instead got the equivalent of another slap in the face. And I'm not sure what expression to let my face fall into: confusion, bemusement, annoyance... I keep it carefully blank , amending (fishing), "Well, bi though, right?"  
"No," Paulo shakes his head ruefully, though I can tell he's struggling to keep the smile at bay now. "Matt, you are gay for one person, your friend Mac, and well, maybe a little bit for John."  
I'm a little gay for McGee? Fuck no. But I can't interrupt. The little guy across from me, suddenly and unaccountably changed for the moment from a beloved character in my life to a fucking oracle, has my full attention "But you, gay? Bi? No no. Tell me about our waitress chico."  
"Huh?"  
"Describe her to me, please. Just humor me for a little minute."  
"Ok... She's about five and a half feet, a little heavy for her height and no ass what so ever, but she's got phenomenal breasts, and great skin, sort of olive and glowy. I think she doesn't wear perfume, but she washes her hair with something fruity smelling, and her eyes are exactly the color of Jesus' in this painting that was in the living room of my high school girlfriend's house, and sort of sad and soulful, like a spaniel's."  
"Is that all?" Paulo says, delicately sipping from his cocktail.  
"Well," I go over her one more time in my head. "You probably wouldn't notice it first glance, because her nose is kind of distracting, but she has really pretty ears, really small and pearly without much lobe, kind of like a seashell. And her name's Rebekah," I finish, remembering the name tag, "with a 'K.'"  
"See?" Paulo says, calmly but with an air of patronizing, yet soothing finality, as if he's won a debate with a five year old or a Christian fundamentalist.  
"See what? I'm an artist, I notice these things."  
"All right then. Look right at me Matt, don't look away, and now tell me all about the man who sits at the table to our left."  
Man to the left? My mind is drawing a blank. "Well," I say, stalling a bit as I light another cigarette and suck the last dregs of my Guinness down. "He's, um, I don't know how tall he is, because he's sitting down..."  
"Hah!" Paul smiles again, showing off his pretty teeth. "Artist you may be, my friend, but I can tell at this moment you are not in an artistic frame of mind. Yet you still noticed the woman. What about the woman behind you?"  
I can feel my cheeks flush. I noticed that one the minute I walked through the door, and even though she was sitting, by the way her thin, denim-clad legs draped over each other and her chair I know she'd be long and slender, like ~  
"See what I'm saying? You are a Casanova, Matty. You are simply not gay, and only maybe bi in the loosest sense of the word."  
Rebekah with a k chooses that moment to notice my beer is empty, stopping at our table, and leans forward a bit to ask if I want another of the same, and I can't help but notice the swell of those fore-described breasts peeking out the opening of her shirt, can only swallow and nod in response. So he has a point.  
"Ok Paulo, I get what you're saying, but if that's the case, then WHY..."  
"Do you see men?" He finishes my statement for me delicately, shrugs just so. "Because you are very open, my friend. Unprejudiced, one might say, and you are a lover. But to date a man? You wouldn't, not in the usual way of things. You love that boy Mac very much, and you love him in the way he wants to be loved, the best way he understands. John, you love him too, almost as much, so you go along with him, you know?"  
"Eh." I sigh, pull my cap down low over my eyes, slump down in my seat, pick up my glass again. "Man Paulo, I just wish you hadn't picked today to give me an identity crisis," I mumble into my beer, light a cigarette.  
"What crisis? You are what you are, you do what you do. No need to put a tag on things Matty, just exist in the way that comes most naturally. Besides," he shrugs, "you brought it up, not me."  
"You weren't supposed to tell me the truth!"  
Paulo just grins at me again, and I can't even be annoyed with him, he looks so damn satisfied with himself ~ not smug, not like that, but just content existing, like he said I should be. And even though I think he's probably wrong, because I DO notice guys, just not on the same level as females, it's the last thing he said that's the kicker, the revelation, the proverb to live by.  
He's absolutely right, I know, and this whole conversation would be a lot more earth-shaking if I didn't have so much other shit going on. But for the moment, Paulo's revelation's only served to drive home the point that despite Mac not wanting me, despite the fact he fucking KNEW I never cheated on him, and still kicked me out, my feelings towards him haven't changed (even though there's a whole lotta "really fucking pissed off" added to them) and for some reason, somehow, he's in some sort of deep shit, dragged into the mire by Mari, and for the past two weeks, which is completely unforgivable of me, I've failed to even take that into account, haven't given it one bit of thought, having instead chosen to wallow in my own hurt and rejection. I am a fucking asshole.  
Unfortunately, this uncertain manifestation of meaning, or un-meaning, if that scans, or how about this "fucking lightening bolt," is interrupted, as say perhaps, the experience of eating a gorgeous steak is spoiled by cutting into a tumor, a puss-pocket in the meat, and I'm sure, at his approach, my expression pretty closely matches what it would look like if this ever happened to me.  
"Hello George," Paulo says, with perfect poise and politeness.  
"Well if it isn't little Paulo and his bodyguard," a snide voice, valley girl intonations made ludicrous by the smooth tenor they're voiced in, interrupts my self-deprecatory and slightly religious reverie. "Where's your fearless leader this fine spring evening?"  
"Excuse me?" This statement is made in my iciest tone, borrowed from my tall, stately mother, exactly spoken in the way she addresses misinformed rednecks who choose to voice their off-color opinions on her lifestyle. It always works fairly well, if only for the purpose of causing a confrontational mutt to lower his hackles and back down a bit.  
"Mr. McGee of course," George the waiter clarifies without blinking, totally unconcerned even though I've done my worst, which is kind of creepy actually. His artfully tousled hair is gelled into place, and his button down shirt ~ street clothes, he's obviously not waitering tonight ~ is blindingly blue and carefully ironed and starched, so I guess Ponytail got around to washing it. The man has worked at becoming the perfect, metro-casual stylish homosexual, and his plastic fantastic hair and smile, artificially bright blue gaze reminds me of a doll, like Ken's gay friend Chaz or something.  
"You mean Johnny?" I find myself unable to keep my tone icy, I've slipped into nasty, and I almost want to say to Paulo, "See? How gay was that?" I'm wishing his friend with the ponytail was around to temper this vitriol ~ I'm generally sweeter around women (which I'm sure is a product of my early home life and self-defense outside the home).  
"Poor, pretty, straighter than an arrow Matthew Munroe," George carries on, getting his drama on, ignoring me. This is why the Justine Munroe ice had no effect ~ he's performing, working from a script, playing to an audience.  
Paulo raises his eyebrows at me, what's called a "speaking look" I think, and I can just hear it now: is that where all those worries came from chico? You cannot be serious...  
"His name isn't Matthew," Paulo says, but is, of course, ignored. George's audience isn't us, I think, it's everyone in the restaurant he imagines is riveted to his performance, an audience, I can see, and sadly for George, consists of no one but us.  
"Abandoned by his supposed boyfriend," the remark is intended to be ironic, I think, "who prefers to spend his time with silly lesbos instead," (Billie and Jasmine?), "abandoned by his strung-out girlfriend, who is at this moment [HANGING OUT WITH] with a criminal, a married criminal, nonetheless, rather than himself, and even left high and dry by poor pathetic John McGee, who, it appears, has finally given up on his hopeless crush, realizing no one else wants him either ~"  
There's a loud, slow clap of hands from behind me ~ and if anyone can make applause drip with sarcasm it's my friend McGee, and I turn my head slightly to take in the little weasel himself, shoot him a slow, lazy grin.  
"Enjoyin' the show as much as us?" I say, emphasizing hick, reassured by his presence, finally able to truly relax, rather than struggling to pretend indifference.  
"Bravo," McGee says dryly. "Now run along George, that's quite enough."  
George's expression is comical, at the least, realizing his performance has been observed by the one person, I imagine, he didn't want witnessing it, and he deflates, all the self-important fire extinguished.  
McGee puts is hand on George's shoulder, somehow escaping looking ridiculous, making the gesture seem as a man to a boy, even though he has to reach up to do it, "Captivating disclosure, George, captivating, but totally unnecessary and quite fallacious. Now please, go away."  
And amazingly, though he looks like he's swallowing a lemon as he does it, George tucks his tail between his legs and goes.  
"John, you do have a way of spoiling my fun," Paulo murmurs quietly, so as not to be overheard, picking up his drink. "He was just getting heated up."  
"You know I can't stand a whiner, love." McGee sits as the waitress sets his customary pre-dinner cocktail neatly on a coaster before him and hands us all menus. He smiles winningly at her and opens his before taking his first sip. After a cursory glance at the menu, he re-folds it neatly, sets it aside, and says to me casually, "So Matthias, have you had a chance to go over my e mail since our conversation last night?"  
I had, as a matter of facet, read it at an internet cafe I'd stopped at for that especial purpose before picking up Paulo. It was a masterpiece of chatty gossip overlying ominous tidings. I'd read it three times, absorbing, but not really processing, before closing out the explorer window and playing five games of solitaire, four of which I'd lost.  
I nod shortly, and RebeKah brings me another beer, and I light a cigarette to accompany it.  
McGee is distracted tonight ~ barely acknowledging me after his initial query, and I don't mind. After all, it's not like everyone's life needs to revolve around Matt Munroe. It gives me time and space to digest what I read earlier, now McGee’s brought it back to my perennially wandering attention. 

FILL IN TRANSITION

My Darling Matthew,  
As I was saying over the phone earlier, what I've found out isn't good. I'll repeat what I told you over the phone, as I'm quite sure you failed to register a word I said regarding Mari; and that, I suppose after some thought on the matter, I can't say in all honesty I fault you for. While slightly offended that you're so distraught over the idea we're falsely perceived as significant others by so many, I know how much you love that boy, and I understand how devastated you must have been upon learning he's taken that malicious bitch Billie Godsey's word on this rampant gossip. When you do manage to straighten all this out darling, watch out for that one. Inside that practiced package of harmless clean androgyny lies a pure bitch female and I'm convinced not even as gay as her sultry oversexed partner is, and she most likely propagated all this to lead to Mac being tied up in her bed. Though if she honestly thinks that's a realistic goal, she's purely stupid, and has failed to recognize the factor of Mari Macy in the equation. And saying that, it brings me full circle out of my tangent and back to Mari, and maybe Billie's heard by chance some of the rumors I've managed to dig up, and realizes Ms. Macy may not be in top defensive form, as far as Mac's concerned at least, having quite a few other matters crowding her plate.  
So let me detail for you, dear one, some of the things:  
1\. Mari has been seen with Mr. Jackson exiting a gun shop in North Seattle. What they bought (or if they were even buying, because you know there's always the possibility they were selling) I don't know. That particular vendor has a certain reputation for shadiness.  
2\. There has been a spree of residential burglaries around the areas of Medina, Mercer Island and the like all the way down through towards Olympia, till you start to get into the dirty south part of the state (no offense, darling). This isn't something I had to look any further for than the Seattle Times, Matt. Although I have spoken with an officer who's flying under the radar, as they say, as far as his sexuality's concerned, and managed to get from him that two of the suspects are female, and one could very easily be your Mari as far as physical description goes. In each of these crimes, there was no obvious evidence of a break in, until certain items, usually jewelry or art, were discovered missing. Alarms were still armed and intact, no locks were broken, etc. The only reason these people know they were burgled is that their things were gone, and the only reason these people aren't suspected of insurance fraud is because, well, there are at least a dozen of them spanning a two to three month period. And it's only after much probing have the men of the homes, in about half the cases, come forward to admit ~and forgive me Matt, darling, but you know she would ~ they'd recently met a big-eyed pretty waif of a blonde thing, quiet and shy and sweet... 

He carried on a bit more ~ McGee is just as verbose with a keyboard as he is with his tongue, obviously ~ but the conclusions I am expected to draw are obvious. I'm still a little confused though, running back over the salient points in my head. All that he wrote, I have little trouble believing. I don't want to believe any of it of course, but I can see it quite easily. The problem lies in reconciling what McGee's said with what Mari and Mac talked about that night, Wednesday night before last, because it just doesn't scan. Mac's slight and pretty for a guy, yeah, but not enough so to be taken as or mistaken for a woman.  
By this time, of course, I’m coming on close to almost drunk, and as I pull out all the thoughts and occurences involving this thing I’ve filed away in that mental filing cabinet I keep talking about, and my brain tries to work through the mess of knowledge I’ve accumulated, I’m getting on close to angry. It’s more the sheer volume of the things that haven’t been said, and the things that have been downright hidden from me, that are pissing me off, and I’m even to the point of looking for a fight. It’s one thing, say, for a mother to protect her child, a lion to protect her cubs, but I’m not a child (usually) nor am I small and furry. As the male of the species goes, I’m fully grown, larger than average in fact, and not, I think, stupid. And underneath the pissed-off and the hurt, there’s fear. It may seem hypocritical, I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking it, what’s supposedly prompted Mac and Mari into this ridiculous blackballing, stonewalling, of myself is fear for my safety and I realize that now, but ninety percent of fear (ok, I made up that number to illustrate what I believe is a large majority) stems from ignorance, from unknowing, and I have no idea where those two assholes are right now, or what sort of trouble they might truly be in.  
It’s not that I don’t trust McGee. But as savvy as that guy is, he runs with a crowd whose members are prone to drama. All I know is that something bad probably is up with the two people I love most in the world, and it’s probably time to do something about it. I’m drunk enough to be coherent still but to have lost a large part of my inhibitions, drunk enough to admit I’ve been a cowering cur these past couple days, and drunk enough to decide, definitively, in the bullheaded you-can’t-fucking-stop-me way enabled by this middling level of inebriation, now is the time for action.  
While McGee and Paulo are lost in conversation with the guy at the table to our left ~ who is actually pretty innocuous, by the way; in my own defense it’s easy to see why I hadn’t noticed him earlier and couldn’t describe him when Paulo asked, because he’s the sort your eyes just sort of slide over when in repose, that is to say he blends into the scenery until animated, when as soon as he sits up at attention, opens his mouth or his ears, he’s the picture of understated elegance, a mouth that would normally seem small and weak is made genteel and expressive in perfect enunciation, his hands dance along with his words and his eyes shine like ~ ok, so I’m a little drunker than I should be, especially for any sort of confrontation like I’m contemplating. And I don’t find that guy at all attractive, though Paulo and McGee seem to be charmed by him. I could maybe find him interesting, at best, if I weren’t so preoccupied already.  
And so what if I’m not gay? I’m thinking ~ that’s the thought that leads to, because my mind is obviously bounding around like a pinball. The point Paulo was trying to make earlier, I figure, examining the remaining few swallows of beer at the bottom of my glass, the point is, there is no point. What does it matter, I think he meant, who or who not I’m gay for ~ does that scan? Fact is, it doesn’t matter, because I don’t plan on being with any one else, other than Mac and Mari. I decide, right at this moment, I’m going to go home. Without so much as a wave to McGee or Paulo, who are still occupied with the nondescript man, I mentally count up my beers, drop enough bills on the table to cover my evening’s expenses, and slip quietly out the door, roundabout, like I’m heading for the bathroom, slipping out quietly upstream through a large group just entering. I’m going to go home, corner those two little shit heads, and just like that night, that seems forever ago now, when I admitted to Mac how I felt about him, no one leaves till we hash all this shit out and make it right.  
It never occurred to me they wouldn’t be there to corner.  
The house looks deserted, at my first drive past, like they left in the morning or midday and didn’t come back. There are no lights, Mac’s car is gone, and the windows are black, shiny squares. Usually, when Mac goes to bed, he draws the drapes and turns on a small lamp that sits on a table near the foot of the stairs, so he doesn’t trip and break himself when he gets up, predawn, to get ready for work.  
I pull the Ford up to the curb, idling there for a minute or ten, trying to decide whether to go in or go home. The answer, however, is present in that musing, because I am home. I cute the engine and purposefully avoid all hesitation as I let myself in.  
I didn’t expect the dark to feel so lonely though. The air of finality, of desertion, I felt when I first saw the hole-like blackness of the windows weighs heavy. My shoes echo on the hardwood floors, much like they did when Mac and I were first looking for a new place, moving out of our apartment in the U district, and we walked through this house for the first time. The sun shone through the windows that day though, making the space seem large and airy despite the nooks and crannies of its bungalow antiquity. Tonight, the only illumination comes from streetlight outside, enlarging the shadows from those same odd nooks, closing in on me.  
As I swing through the kitchen door, I’d even go so far to say as an adumbration much like doom invades my gut. It’s something about the way the kitchen chairs are angled that makes me think at least Mac doesn’t expect to come back. As I’ve said before, the kitchen is Mac’s playroom. He’s not as precise in there as his in all other matters of his life. Maybe this is because cooking isn’t an exact science, all full of pinches and dashes and handfuls ~ “to taste” I believe the saying is. The crux of it is, although everything’s always clean and put away in here (at least while Mac’s home ~ Mari and I have a tendency to leave things lying about) the pictures are sometimes crooked in here, figuratively speaking, and Mac doesn’t care. As I fumble for the light, standing in the doorway I see for sure in illumination everything is perfectly straight, the chairs pushed up at even intervals to the kitchen table and the tablecloth aligned with precision. Even his kitchen aid is gleaming, and as I cross the room to examine the contents of drawers, I confirm my suspicion that the utensils and spatulas and gewgaws are lined up in perfect rank and file. It looks like a magazine in here, or an episode of the Twilight Zone. I wonder back out to the living room, flicking the light off behind me. Do I just sit around and wait till they get home? It seems like the best option, since if I go out looking for them, I have no fucking clue where to start, especially since I haven’t spoken a word to either of them in at least ten days, and I have a feeling the usual places (or at least Mac’s usual places, Mari’s are a mystery to me) won’t apply tonight. Then again, as I’ve been saying, as I’ve been feeling, tonight’s not like other nights. I might be left waiting forever. There’s a sort of cumulative feeling hovering, like this is the end of it, this is the point all their sneaking around was leading up to. I stand at the foot of the stairs, staring up into the darkness, trying to figure out which way my feet want to go. Partly, they don’t want any part of seeing that room, the heart of the house so to say, with all aspects of myself removed. I know, though, this is where I’m most likely to find any clues as to their whereabouts, having struck out on anything but that sense of impending doom the kitchen left me with.  
As I stand there, wracked with indecision, the room is brightened by the glare of headlights. Squinting through near light-blindness, I make out the shape of a non-descript sedan pulling into the empty driveway, and my heartbeat quickens, so much I have to gasp to catch my breath, and it’s hard to swallow with the way my pulse is pounding in my throat. I reach the door just as someone pounds on it. I feel strangled by that echoing, hollow knock, and my heart seems, almost, to stutter and stop (it’s not them) before restarting to race even faster than before (then who the hell is it?). I must’ve lost a couple long moments, just staring wide-eyed at the door, trying to catch my breath, or else whomever’s standing on the other side is incredibly impatient, because the pounding repeats. I consider and discard the idea it could be McGee. While he would follow me, he wouldn’t knock like that. A McGee knock either sounds like a polite or sarcastic request, depending. This knock is a definite demand. Well Matt, you’ll never fucking find out unless you open it.  
Two shadows are all I see: a tall lean one and a smaller, slender one, until I remember to turn on the porch light. The longer shadow turns out to be a dark-haired woman and the smaller is a dapper, almost dainty blonde man, and they’re not phased by the sudden glare. “Hey,” the woman says, “Who the hell are you?”  
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” I counter, off balance. “I live here. I should be asking who the fuck you think you are, pounding on my door at ten at night.”  
The woman glares at me darkly, then looks down to pick at a loose thread on her jacket, muttering, “It’s only nine thirty,” and the main places a staying hand at her elbow, though he looks at me while he speaks, smiling apologetically. Smooth is what the little guy is, and pretty damn attractive. If McGee’s a mink cum weasel, this one’s a fox, under that open-seeming sunny smile I can tell there’s guileless cunning.  
“Cool it Jen, the guy has a point, Mr.…?”  
“Matt Munroe,” I ID myself, crossing my arms at my chest, straining to my full height.  
“You live here?” the woman pushes.  
“Yes, I live here, I did say it was my door.” My name is, after all, still on the lease.  
“Does Marianna Macy live here with you?” she continues. The woman is a dog, for sure. I don’t mean she’s ugly. I mean she’s a dog in the way the blonde guy’s a fox, in that she’s got her teeth locked on something, she’s got her nose locked on a scent, and she’s not letting go. She’s built, coincidentally, like the greyhound of my earlier imaginings, being long, lean, loose-jointed and angular.  
“Ye~ Wait, why am I answering these questions?” The beer fog is still hovering around my brain, but still I have a feeling I should be able to figure out why they’re here asking me these questions myself, and I should know better than to be too free with my answers.  
With a patient, rueful smile from the fox, the pair simultaneously pull out ID badges, like a choreographed dance move. “Detectives Crawford and Banks. I’m Banks,” he says. “We have this as the address for ~”  
“What do you want with Mari?” I interrupt sharply, over anticipating, and know immediately too late sharp retorts aren’t the best way to get rid of these two yahoos, that I should probably be playing big, dumb and unconcerned.  
“That’s none of your business,” the woman says. She obviously chafes easily. I ignore her, and focus my attention on the short one.  
“We’re just wondering if she’s been acting at all unusually the past few weeks, changed her habits or…"  
"Look, I live here, but I don't see that girl very often, and for the past two weeks or near abouts, I haven't laid eyes at her at all."  
"She's been gone for two weeks?" Banks' eyebrows lift.  
"Man, I dunno," I push back my cap and scratch. "Maybe. I have though. My moms needed help around their house, so I've just been staying there." Not a total lie. The grass around the hammock is probably greener due to the shade I’ve bestowed upon it in the evenings, and I’ve watered it quite a bit.  
“So you and your roommate aren’t close?” Crawford picks up, fishing. Banks shoots her a look. See, dog. Can’t let well enough lie.  
“Look man. I’ve had a long day, and fact is, I’m not entirely sober and the person you’re looking for isn’t here. Can we maybe do this some other time? Gimme your card or whatever and I’ll call you if, what was it you said? I see her acting unusually or something, k?” I’m leaning in close, hoping the smell of my breath will reinforce my statement, which probably still reeks of beer, since it hasn’t been all that long since I left Broadway in a state that was iffy for driving.  
“Yeah, sure,” Banks says, trying to look sympathetic, though I can tell he’s frustrated as hell. He pulls out a card, scribbles something on the back, and hands it over. “That’s a cell phone on the back. We’re really interested in talking to your roommate, Matt, but just talking right now. Nothing to worry about, so pass that on, right? We’ll let you get to bed now.”  
“But ~” Crawford looks really annoyed.  
“Come on Jen, we’re not getting anything out of that yahoo,” I hear him hiss as he pulls her towards the car, and I can’t help smiling a little as I shut the door behind them. That’s my pet word. Under different circumstances, Banks might be all right. But the circumstances aren’t different, and you can bet I won’t be calling them any time soon. All the same, I pull out my wallet and file the card away carefully. What’s that old adage? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?  
Figuring I might as well get comfortable, I head to the kitchen in search of something my palate can tolerate night-cap wise. It’s going to be a long night waiting for Mac and Mari, and I’ve always hated half-way drunk, and don’t really feel like waiting it out sober.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a mess. I'm sorry.


	15. Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

She’s standing in the shadows of the dark kitchen, just a Mari outline, merely a shape in the dark. She must have gone around back when she saw the strange car parked in the driveway, and come in through the back yard, through the back door. My eyes, already mostly adjusted to darkness, having kept the lights dim in the house since my arrival only a short time before, can still only make out bits and pieces of the girl ~ the oval of her pale face, her dark eyes like holes in it under the brim of a cap, her small white hands. She's dressed all in close black, stealth mode I gather, like an eel, or a snake, or a cat.   
"I didn't tell them anything," I say. It's the first thing I can think to say, the only thing really. I want her to know I still care enough to try to protect her, at least that much, but I don't really know what to say other than that. I'm not tipping my hand yet, not about to let her know she and Mac hold me, jointly, in the palms of their dirty hands. The questions crowding my mind since I left that day seem suddenly moot. What business of mine are the whats and the whys, if they didn't matter enough in the first place for them to tell me? In this moment, none of it really matters, and I've the feeling they've left me behind, I'm going to have to race to catch up, make them let me catch up, grab them by the scruffs of the neck if I have to, to pull them back to me. But looking at her face, expressionless in the faint light off the back porch, her attire, designed for sneaking, I'm suddenly not so sure anymore my original intentions were best. Whatever game they're playing in is obviously two player, and I feel too old and tired for games anyway. If they didn't want me, what right have I to force myself on them? I have the urge to set my house key on the table and walk straight out the door, I'm thinking maybe I should get back in my truck and drive back to the Broadway Grill, wrap myself up safe in the comparative sanity of Paulo and McGee and that whole trite, fake scene, finish drinking myself to numbness and forget, completely, these two mad, bad, beautiful people ever happened to me. In this moment, Mari, a person whose every curve is familiar to me, whose every quirk of action, thought and speech are, if not familiar, at least rarely a surprise, feels so distant, and I wish she was a stranger.   
"Not that I really know anything," I add, as she's still just standing there, looking at me. It sounds a little bitter in my ears, the tone of my voice, which isn't right, because there shouldn't even be that much feeling left according to the thoughts running through my head.   
"Matty," she says finally, and my name comes from her lips as a creak, like door hinges, unoiled. She takes a deep breath, I can hear it rattle in her chest the house is so quiet, and a step forward. "Matty please, don't sound like that. I needed you."  
"Well maybe I fucking needed you too! But when's the last time you've been here? When's the last time you've really been around? Weeks, Mar ~ months." Ok, I hadn't known that was in there waiting to burst forth. "Shit."  
"You don't understand. He wouldn't let me have you." I hate it when she sounds like she's pleading, when she sounds like a little girl, something she hasn't been for at least 13 years, if ever, something to protect and comfort.   
"Who, this Jackson fuck I keep hearing all over town you're fucking around with?" In defense, the words explode from my lips, seeming louder in the house's empty silence, in their accusatory awkwardness, than I know they really are.   
"No." Her lips form the words, though I can't hear a sound through the ringing in my ears. "Mac."  
It's what I already know, somewhere in the depths of my thoughts, though actually having it said to me, from her own lips, causes my vision to go black for a minute, for my knees to turn to water. I grope for one of the carefully pushed in chairs, miss, and settle for finding a counter to lean against, reeling a little.   
As if my abrupt movement's broken some sort of spell over us, she moves now, striding across the room to the stove, flicking on the hood light, reaching into the messenger bag I can see now slung over her shoulder and pulling out a long black cigarette. Her movements are quick, bird-like, and when she pushes back the brim of her cap ~ a gesture so like one of my own it aches in my chest ~ I see her eyes are dark and sparrow bright. She's wearing black leggings with high, steel-toed boots laced up over them, a tight dark turtle neck that emphasizes a boniness of shoulders and ribs one doesn't generally see under her usual baggy garb. She flicks on the front burner and lights the cigarette in the flame, the blue glow momentarily highlighting the sharpness of her cheek bone, and the slight hollow beneath, the lovely curve of her jaw and the whorls of her ear. She switches off the burner and leans next to me on the exhale, one arm wrapped tightly around her waist, the other casually holding up the butt at chin level, that arm holding her insides in the only break in her facade of nonchalance. "Maybe you know some of what's been going on?"   
"No, not really." Not now that I know for sure Mac's involved. Mar, Ican see her doing this sort of thing ~ the things guessed at, extrapolated by McGee and detailed in his email to me ~ for kicks, or if not exactly that, because it was something to do. Maris moral compass is a little out of alignment from most of the world. But Mac? I knew something was up with him from what I overheard, but I truly can't see it, and with him as an added element to this whole thing, I truly am lost. "Just rumors and whispers," I add. "Nothing I could really, truly believe." I realize just now I didn't truly believe any of it until now. I knew it was probably all true in my head, to some extent, but my gut never wanted to accept it, kept searching for another explanation. And my voice is cold, as I intended, but I regret it in the slight relaxation of her posture, like a droop, like disappointment, like I should've known, been more attentive, seen through their goddamn smoke and mirrors. Sorry sweetie, I'm not superman, not even Clark Kent.   
"You weren't even suspicious when I fed you that line about visiting my mom with AJax?" Disbelief, relief ~ the first, because now it was so obviously a line, as she says; the relief, I don't know, maybe because if I had known there was trouble, a friend like I'm supposed to be to them would've done something, anything, at least said something, and all I've done since is the weeks-long equivalent of sitting back with my thumb up my ass and a dumb look on my face.   
"No Mar. I trust you." Self-mocking, bitter ~ reasons obvious.   
The subtle droop now has turned into a hunched-overness that would normally indicate something like stomach cramps, or nausea, as still she clutches her gut. "I wanted to tell you. The whole time I wanted to tell you. You were there, that first night she called, and I didn't know what to do, and you held me together. Matty's always trying to keep us from flying to pieces. But he wouldn't let me say anything to you, not a fucking word, see?" She spits in the sink, as if the stale taste of words pouring out now, things that should have been said weeks ago, is too much for delicate taste buds to bear. She looks delicate now, in the glow and shadows from the dim stove hood light, smoke wreathing her head, as it so often does, in a sort of dirty halo. And the shitty thing is, I don't see. I'm lost. The only thing I can think of that she'd be referring to ~ "That first night she called" ~ because Mari doesn't GET phone calls, is the call from her mother, al those weeks ago, but that doesn't make any sense in this equation.   
"He wanted to keep you safe," she says, "keep you clean from it ~" she sort of chuckles, an amazingly sane sounding chuckle considering all the shit that's now pouring from her mouth ~ Niagara Falls, compared to Mari's usual mid-summer backwoods dried-up creek bed trickle, or maybe, a catharsis, the verbal result of the figurative enema of my unforeseen presence, if you can take that metaphor.   
"The whole time I kept trying to tell him you're not a fucking child, you can take it, you know how to handle yourself, right? No, fucking anal about everything, even down to this, he won't have his precious 'Matty baby'" ~ snide, here ~ "wouldn't have you involved. 'None of this touches him.'" Amazingly accurate mimic of Mac, that. And then she looks at me. "But you're mine, too, right? We share you, you're mine and his to share, and I fucking needed you, and he wouldn't listen." Again, that little girl breaking through the normally impenetrably smooth surface, mask, facade.   
And I'm shattered.   
I reach for her, but she's pacing now, like he does ~ like Mac (and shit, it makes my throat hurt), in a short path before me, her heavy boots grinding the pieces of me to dust on the linoleum, with each step, with each word.   
"So many times I wanted you to see, couldn't see how you couldn't see, I put it right out there, lied to your face, hoping you'd notice. I thought maybe you did see what was going on sometimes, that you were ignoring it, or that you just didn't give a shit, but as smart as you are ~" she pauses, looks up at me, "Matty baby, you are just so DENSE." She says it fondly, and still it's like an arrow, damnit, because the sadness, the wistfulness, that's an integral part of Mari somewhere always deep under the layers, is at the forefront now, and drowning her, and me, both of us.   
"What times?" I lick my dry lips, choke on my words.   
"Oh Matty, even now?" She throws her arms around my neck, her nose pressed against it, and under my hands I can feel the knobs of her spine trembling, but she's laughing. I try to push her away, I want to, but what happens is more like a nudge. She moves back though, wipes her eyes with her fingertips, and I open the fridge. Oh, right, I've been gone two weeks. There's noting in here I would normally drink. Mac does wine, water, whisky and tea; Mari tends to exist on coffee and beer, but beers the last thing I need now, despite my earlier intentions of nightcaps comma lots. Mari squirms in under my arm and reaches behind a carton of milk and two sealed Tupperwares to dig a probably long forgotten Gatorade from the back, hands it to me, pulls out the chair I knocked askew earlier, and I sit, and she sits next to me.   
"It's all the times I've been gone these past months, it's everything I never said, that you knew I wasn't saying Matt, you knew something’s been off." I expect her to shove me, her words are like the start of an argument, but she only scoots her chair around the table so it's touching mine, rests her head on my shoulder, and so I put my hand around her waist, to keep her close, for a little while longer.   
"What else love?" As much as I hate terms of endearment used against me, I don't use them on others normally, but it slips out unthought of, and she relaxes against me at the word, telling me all about it like a child relates her day at school, like a mother tells a bedtime story.   
"Oh, lots," she says. "All the times Mac asked you about me, if you'd seen me, if you knew where I'd been, because he was afraid you DID know, not because he didn't. And there was that day you were so sick, and Mac didn't go to bed with you like he normally would have, when he said he was going to sleep on the couch, he told me. He was so afraid you were going to wake up and find out he was gone, but I guess he asked you later and you didn't wake up till after he was supposed to have left for work. He picked me up that night, we were out all night, and I went with him to work in the morning. Ajax had just picked me up, I guess, when you showed up. I slept a while in Mac's backseat and changed in the bathroom at the cafe. Mac was positive that dish kid or Jasmin were going to say something about seeing me, but I guess Jasmin was so enthralled at her first sight of you it slipped her mind, or she's just that discreet, and the dish kid really is just stupid."  
I take a swig of the Gatorade with my free hand, digesting this, while Mari fiddles with my other, on the arm still securely around her waist.   
"I saw you walking up to the cafe as I drove away, and I thought for sure you'd found out, that you were coming to call Mac out on it. And then when you followed me, I was positive, that even if Mac hadn't let it out, you'd guess at least some of it. When I came home, and you were both home so early, I was holding my breath, hoping you'd made him tell you, something, anything, and that you'd worked it all out ~ you looked so peaceful together, he always sleeps so quietly when you're holding onto him ~ and I didn't know to be relieved or disappointed when I found out you were just home sick, that you still didn't know a damn thing. I couldn't believe you were so blind."  
Willfully, I thought, but keep that to myself for the moment ~ it's a relatively new observation ~ stroking her back in slow, soothing motions.   
"And," I add, because she's showing signs of stopping, "that morning Ajax was here."   
She ducks her head down so her ear's against my chest, and the stub of a ponytail she's managed to gather her mop into under her cap tickles my neck and chin. This moment, like so many others lately, has taken cover under a veil of surreality, and I wonder how it is we're sitting here discussing deceptions and lies done unto each other while having a midnight cuddle, her dressed like a bank robber and me still half drunk from having beers in lieu of dinner.   
"When I saw you weren't in bed, I didn't know if you went for a run, or went home with McGee, or what."  
"I was in the basement. It was the first time I knew something was up. But I thought it was some other guy you were seeing, is all."  
Her hand tightens around mine. "I wouldn't," she says, seeming almost fierce. "I don't need anyone else. I have everything I need. I could have been happy forever, just existing with you and Mac, knowing we all come home to the same place ~"  
"Then what the hell IS all this?" I interrupt. "If that's the case, then this can't be about the robberies, it ~"  
"Oh, it's not," she sounds surprised, and shakes her head against my chest, looks up at me then. "If it were anything like being about that, Mac wouldn't be in the middle of all this. You know what a little tight ass he is."  
"That's why I'm so fucking confused! Nothing that's going on here makes any sense! Why is Mac in this, and why does he want me out of it so badly?" Badly enough to rip my life away from me, to leave me cut up and bleeding on the basement floor without looking back, make me think he thinks it's all my fault too.  
"We're going to kill my mother Matt," she says matter of factly, as if she can't believe I have to ask, as if I'm that one kid in the back of the class who just never gets it, and always asks the stupidest questions right after the answer's just been made clear to the class.  
"I'm sorry. Say what?"  
"We're going to kill my mother. I would've done it years ago, except she's in that stupid, high security facility and I couldn't think of how to get to her without getting caught. I mean, I don't want her gone as some sort of vengeance thing, not badly enough to ruin my life over. but I'd feel a lot better if I knew she wasn't there anymore. But when I got that phone call, and Mac noticed I was so whacked out, and forced out of me what happened, well, he had some ideas, and he knew this guy ~ the guy who turned out to be Ajax, right? ~ who could help us, you know, trade work for work. THAT'S why the robberies, silly, not because Mac and I have gone of on some weird kick and decided we had a sudden need to burgle."  
Honestly, the words coming from her mouth are too big to wrap my insignificant brain around. It's as if someone just told you ants are actually super-intelligent beings and have actually been running the planet since before man invented the wheel and expected you to believe it, accept it, and to have actually suspected such a thing all along. But it appears my gray matter and my conspiracy theorist instincts aren't up to snuff here.   
"No, really Mari."  
She sighs impatiently.  
"Seriously." I try again.  
"Come on Matty. It's not like we haven't done it before!"  
We're not, of course, cuddled up anymore, but have, in the course of the past few verbal exchanges, moved so were sitting knee to knee, like a tea party face off, Mari sitting straight-backed and rigid in her kitchen chair, me leaning back against mine, slumped, arms crossed at my chest, on the defense in my lostness. "What do you mean? What have you done before?"  
"You know...gotten someone, oh, out of the way?" She says this with an un-Mari like delicacy, a lilt to the end of her disclosure, as a question, making sure, with more patience now, that I'm following, her eyebrows furrowing in the middle of her brow. "You know, when we killed Larry. You knew that was us Matty, you had to have."  
"Larry died in a car accident!"  
"Shit. Mac was right. I thought you figured that one out ages ago and were just keeping it to yourself."  
I hear a sort of whimpering noise coming from somewhere around the back of my throat.  
"Right." She sighs again. When Mari sighs, it's not a heavy sound, not impatient, it's more a stirring of the air about her, more polite than the usual sort of sigh, as if she's trying to keep her frustration to herself, like a lady holds in a burp, and lets it out her nose, so that I feel that much worse for causing her sighs. But fuck it all, it's not like I can help it. "We cut the brake lines," she says. "You told us how."  
"I did not!"  
"Well you told us in explicit detail how brakes work when Mac emailed you to ask." She's being very patient with me, I can tell, as she purposely relaxes her posture, unclenches her hands. She reaches into her bag, now slung over the back of the kitchen chair, and pulls out her cigarettes, lights two, hands me one. I stare at it a moment before taking a drag.   
My brain's starting to work again, and I'm trying to remember the year Larry died ~ my freshman year in college, so I wasn't there for it, and Mac has specifically asked me to stay at school, not go to the funeral, that Larry wasn't worth me missing any classes or study time or interrupting my life at all for. I remember that email vaguely now. I'd felt so badly for not being around for the better part of a year, I'd wanted to do my best for him at such a simple request. The response had been essay quality in length, coherency and detail.   
"But if you just cut the brake lines," I reason, "you can't have been sure he would die. Wasn't there something else about it? It wasn't just the crash..."  
"Do you want some coffee? I could make coffee," she says helpfully, her eyes shifting to the side ~ not like she's nervous, but like she's losing interest in the conversation, which annoys the hell out of me, because while all this may be old news to her, it's kind of shaken up my already shaky little world, you know?  
"It wasn't just the brake lines, was it? What else did you do, Mar?"  
"Oh, you know how lazy those county guys are out there," dismissive now, as she crosses to the counter, fills the coffee pot with cold water from the filtered tap. "Besides that no one liked Larry anyway. No one was about to look too closely, no one was going to do an autopsy or a tox."  
I'm just going to let it go for now, I decide, as she effectively cuts off conversation for the time by running a measure of beans through the grinder. Not forever, we're for goddamn sure going to go back over that little detail later, but there are more pressing issues to discuss at the moment. I take a deep breath. "Ok, so why kill your mother? I get what a horrible person she is, worse than Larry even." I almost choke on that one. I'm reading carefully here, I feel like a fraud, because I don't really get any of this at all, and the suspension of disbelief is straining the cover of calm I'm trying to uphold. I have to keep that cover of inquisitive serenity though, because if I freak, I'm not going to get another word out of Mari, I know. She's already said more in the past half hour than she's said in the past half year. "But she can't hurt you where she's at," I continue carefully. "She's certified nuts," like you are, my love, totally batshit, "and they're not going to let her out. It sounds like more trouble than it's worth."  
I'm watching her pour more beans into the grinder, wince slightly at the noise it makes as she presses down on it, almost viciously, definitely purposefully, and finally shakes the bean dust into the filter, flips the lid of the coffee maker shut, presses the button to brew. She does all this without a word, and I'm afraid, as careful as I've been, I've somehow silenced her. She turns towards me again though, as the coffee machine gurgles, takes a final drag off her cigarette, crosses back over to the table to stub it out in the ashtray in front of me. She shrugs, then, says, "We've already done most of the work, no point on not finishing it up," as if there's been no break at all between my question and her reply.   
And really, her answer is sort of logical, I find myself thinking, with a mental shrug to mimic hers (which she, in turn, picked up from Mac), why not? I guess if that’s all there is, just finish it ~ “What the hell?” It bursts from my lips, my own internal moral check. I’m afraid, for the moment, with that I’ve lost my increasingly precarious hold on her inclination towards disclosure, but she only looks at me with something like sympathy, pushes her pack of cigarettes across the table towards me.   
“The thing I love most about you is the thing that frustrates me most about you Matty. You’re too fucking nice.”  
“I’ve been called an asshole plenty of times,” I mutter around the filter as I touch flame to the tip of the cigarette.   
“Not by anyone who really knows you.”  
I give up. “Mar, I just don’t fucking get it. Please, please make me understand. I want to be there for you, I want to help you, but I just…” I’m just in way over my head. Nothing’s like I thought it was, and I feel like I’ve been living half my life blind all of a sudden.   
She puts her face in her hands, and for a minute, I think she’s going to do that thing where she comes up laughing, where I’m always afraid for a split second that, against the usual odds, she might actually be crying, but when she resurfaces, her face is its more frequent blank and her eyes are distant. “Have you ever felt like you were going to break into a million pieces?” she says.   
Yes, right now actually, I want to say, but I know it’s a rhetorical question and I keep still, waiting.   
“Now imagine feeling like that every day, every minute of every day, your whole life, just spending your whole attention keeping yourself together.”  
I think about it. I’m not going to discount her words, brush them off. That’s not what people do to people like she is to me. But I can’t let it be a reason. “Mari, people feel like that all the time, every day, all over the world. You don’t have to ~ you don’t have to OFF someone to fix it. We can find some other way to make it stop. I swear I’ll help. I’ll be there more Mari.”   
She shakes her head, says absolutely solemnly, “That’d be good Matty. But I really do have to kill her. As long as I can remember, that woman has been telling me I shouldn’t exist, that I’m a living sin, I’m the devil’s child, that my very existence is an abomination.”  
In my own private opinion, Mari’s mother watched Rosemary’s Baby one too many times. Or was that even out when Mari and I were babies? Either way, only a woman who’d completely lost it would think that, let alone say that to her child. “You know that’s fucking bullshit Mari.” I keep my tone even, rational. “The woman is insane. They’ve proven that. She has auditory hallucinations, she has fucking visions. Look, her padded cell may be dressed up to look like an expensive convalescent’s getaway, but it’s still a locked, guarded, padded cell.”  
“I know that in my head Matt, but it’s harder to know that in my gut, and in my nerves.” She echoes my earlier thoughts about herself and Mac, and what they’ve been up to behind my back. “Even after that time with the knife, even after they put her away, she’s managed to let little things drop, in phone calls, in letters, even in things supervised and censored, what I am to her ~ the numbers of Bible verses she made me learn by heart before I could read, things she used to say to me I know sound innocent on the surface, but that she’d say from the other side of the door of a lightless, locked closet where she used to keep me before they found out about her and took her away…” She crosses back to the counter, stands there with her back to me, studying the coffee machine with all her attention, as if she’s trying to remember how to pick up the pot and pour.   
It’s like a bad 70s horror movie, I’ve reflected often enough before, because I’ve always known the details, everyone used to know about Mari Macy and her mother, but hearing it for the first time from Mari’s own mouth, the crazy, gaudy melodrama of it is stripped away with the stark terror in her eyes at remembering. I’m seeing more where she’s coming from now in the trembling of her fingers and lips as she carefully, as precisely as she can, pours the coffee, I hear it in the hollowness of her voice.   
“I dream about it every night. Just like Mac, I have nightmares every time I sleep. I can’t scream in them, Matty, just like when it really happened, I couldn’t make a noise. Sometimes I still can’t make a sound.” She carefully carries our two mugs back to the table, sets one in front of me, lights another cigarette before she sits, one elbow propping her cigarette hand up above her head, clutching the oversized mug, as far as her small hand will go around, on the other side. “I have to do this Matt. I have to finally take control of something, and this is what’s wrong. Ever since I decided to do this, realized I could really do this, I can breathe again. I know you’ve seen it Matty. You’ve seen how much better I’ve been since I’ve taken control. I have to make her go away, and now I know I can I’ll never be ok again if I don’t. I know you can’t help me, but please don’t stop me. If you’ve ever loved me, if you’ve ever known me all the way ~ and I know you do, I know you know me better than anyone, even Mac ~ you won’t even try to stop me ~”  
She’s so completely convinced herself this is the only course of action that she’s got me almost convinced. Her convictions are unshakable, and I know I can’t talk her out of them. Mari’s a reasonable woman, as far as women go. She’s never going to ask you if a certain dress makes her look fat, and if, on the day pigs fly, she does, she wouldn’t be offended if you tell her it’s awful, she’ll just go change. And for what it’s worth, all this does make a certain amount of logical sense (like I started to think myself a few minutes ago before I stopped myself, but this time I let my head go). It makes a certain logical sense, that is, if your morality is totally relative and completely out of alignment with the majority of this world’s population. Mari’s mother has always been, will always be a problem for her, so she’s going to get rid of her mother, permanently. See? And there’s no moving her from this logic, or this decision, but I’m thinking I can at least maybe stall it, give me some time, at least, to think of something, find some way to put it off, hopefully open-endedly, wishfully thinking forever-like. I take a sip of my coffee, light yet another cigarette, try to find the reasonable part of her brain from another angle. “Ok, Mar, I get it.”  
“You don’t,” she says, but she’s smiling tenderly at me again. “You understand my reasons, but you wouldn’t be Matty if you really, deep down in your bones understood that this has to be done.”  
“Mari, I ~”  
She reaches across the table and puts her index finger to my lips. “And you wouldn’t still be sitting her with me, trying your damndest to make sense of it if you weren’t our Matty.”  
For some reason, this makes me feel even more desperate. “Mari, honey, come on.” I’m out of my chair now, I find myself on my fucking knees in front of her. “I get your logic. What you’re doing, yeah, it makes sense, even if it’s not exactly something I think is right.”  
She grins at me, thrilled with me for some reason, and places her hands on my shoulders, looks straight into my eyes, to show me she’s listening, even if anything I’m saying’s not making a fuck’s bit of difference.   
“What doesn’t make any sense is doing it now! The police were just at your fucking door, Mari! They’re going to know you did it, because somehow, they’re on to you and Ajax and those fucking burglaries!  
And she’s down on the floor then with me, her arms around my neck, stroking my hair. “It’s ok Mattykins. They don’t have any actual evidence, everything they have is circumstantial. The only way they’ll be able to ever get us is if Ajax rolls on us later, and we’ll just make sure he won’t.”  
Ah fuck. The casualties just keep piling up.   
“But Mar ~”  
“Shh.” She touches her forehead to mine. “We’re not going to make it look like a robbery gone wrong anymore anyway. I would’ve loved to put a bullet between her eyes, but dead is dead. It’ll just be quiet and accident-like, see?”  
I groan. “Last minute changes of plans never come off. Haven’t you watched enough movies to know this?” This is utterly ludicrous.   
“Oh, nice, this is cute,” he says, slamming the back door behind him, and Mari and I both jump. “Little nookie on the kitchen floor?” We were so involved in ourselves we didn’t hear a thing, didn’t even hear him open the door, and now the slam reverberates, seems an assault on my ears after the quiet conversation, near whispers, between Mari and me.   
I supposed there’s no need for quiet, at that. It is our house. In retrospect, I have no idea why Mari and I left the lights off. Mari looks a little guilty as she stands up and brushes non-existent dust off her knees, leans back against the stove, but I know I probably look annoyed as I resume my seat at the table. It’s not the interruption, it’s his attitude, like we’ve got no right to indulge in a little nookie on our own kitchen floor, despite the fact that’s not actually what we were doing.   
Mac pours himself a cup of coffee and hoists himself up to sit on the counter, his legs dangling, lights a smoke, just as if it were another day, a cup of coffee and a cigarette after dinner, after kitchen cleanup, like we do ~ or like we used to do.   
“Whatcha doin’ here Matty? Not to be a dick or anything, but you don’t live here anymore,” he says lightly, conversationally.  
“In all fairness, my name’s still on the lease,” I point out, striving to match his tone, but it’s hard. It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve seen him, it feels like it was just yesterday. I’m so angry with him I could grab him by the shoulders and shake him till his teeth chatter together, and I missed him so much all I want to do is hold onto him, and brush away that stupid hank of hair that’s always hanging in his eyes.   
He just hunches over his coffee cup a moment, gripping it in both hands, resting his elbows on his knees, looking at his reflection in the liquid or I don’t know what, but he’s purposely not looking at me. Finally, he says to his coffee, “So what did she tell you?” and while he’s not talking to me, exactly, he’s obviously excluding Mari, his body angled away from her, physically avoiding her presence.   
I glance at the clock, and it’s later than I thought it was. “Dunno,” I say dully. “Ran into each other here half hour, maybe as much as an hour ago. Why?”   
He looks up now, his eyebrows pressed down flat and low. “What d’you mean, you just ran into each other?” He jumps down from the counter and in two long strides is seated next to me at the table, hands clasped together as he leans in for my explanation, and the look on his face says “this better be good.”   
“I mean I was here, and no one else was, and then she was here, and I made her tell me what the FUCK’S been going on!” I really hate it when people emphasize swear words in conversation ~ you know, when you can actually hear the italics ~ but that’s what I’m doing here, because I’ve had as much of their shit as I can take, and despite best intentions, I’m inclined to get up right now and walk the FUCK right back out the door, the second time this evening I’ve been struck by that inclination at least, and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just go with my instincts, for real this time.   
Mac slumps back in the chair, blows his hair from his eyes, his long fingers tapping out some silent rhythm on his mug. All three mugs match, they’re large and deep with a black matte finish just like the plates and bowls and such.   
“You told him everything?” he says, finally looking at Mari now, sounding defeated like I’ve never heard him sound before, my ever optimistic little asshole, and my mental reach for my truck keys melts away.   
“Oh yes,” she says, alert, bright, and hurries (as much as Mari ever actually hurries) over to take a seat at the table with us, taking his words to her as reacceptance. “I even had to tell him about Larry. You were right, he never figured that one out like I thought he had.”  
He looks at her as if she’s suddenly developed a large, puss-filled zit on the tip of her nose. “Dude, Mar, what the fuck are you ON?” Standing, both hands palms flat on the table, leaning in, in her face, he says, “We fucking talked about this, again and over again!” His voice has risen in volume, but is deeper in anger. He points at me, arm outstretched straight without looking, and I nearly get a finger in the eye. “He is not in this! He’s got nothing to do with this!” Then, quieter, though no less intense, “I can’t lose him,” through gritted teeth. His shoulders are heaving, his eyes squinched nearly shut as he glares, waiting for the impact of this: an expression, words, anything. He gets nothing but the bottom of a coffee cup as she tilts it up to sip from the dregs at the bottom, then the flare of her lighter at the end of another cigarette. But he’s patient in his face off, and finally she says, “You’re not getting it Macsy. He’s already in this. And if you try to shove him out of it now, you’ve lost him anyway. He’s already thought about walking out that door for the second time, twice tonight.”  
I would be thinking about it again, but this exchange is too fascinating. For one, Mari knows me too well. I tend to forget that sometimes in her long silences. For two, this is a side of Mac I’ve never managed to open my eyes to, never allowed myself to notice just how selfish, how self-centered he really is in his control-freakishness, or how he thought of me either. Yeah, sure, he always took care of me in a way, feeding me, picking up after me, dosing me with aspirins and stuff when I was sick. But does he really think I’m that incapable, that naïve?  
“Tit for tat Matt,” Mari says with a smirk, interrupting my revelation. “It’s not like you’re not ridiculously over-protective of him too.”   
The girl is uncanny sometimes. And eschewing the angst she’s probably entitled to, Mari doesn’t point out a large percentage of the time I was trying to protect him from her.   
“Goddamn,” Mac says, rubbing his eyes with the balls of his palms. It’s a natural instinct, to scoot my chair next to his, wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull him next to me, and it’s just as natural for him to relax there, grope for my hand and clutch it tightly. His breath is ragged. I rest my chin on his head, tracing slow circles on his palm with my thumb.   
“See?” Mari says. “You need him too.”  
Mac struggles away from my loose hold. “Fuck Matt, this isn’t right. You’re too good for this shit. Please, just go back to your moms’, come back in a week, two weeks, when everything’s over, right?”  
“Oh what?” Mari breaks in, mock innocence ~ that is, hurt sarcasm, unusual, that, because Mari always says what she means, or almost always ~ infusing her voice. “He’s too good to get his hands dirty, but I’m cool to be dragged into the middle of your brilliant plans?” Even the fact that she’s protesting is odd. Normally, if she has a problem with someone or a situation, she just gets up and walks away. Mac doesn’t expect it either ~ the tone or the protest ~ by the look on his face.   
“Dude Mar, it’s YOUR mom.”   
“Your idea. And Larry was yours, Mac, and if I’m remembering right, your idea too. Bringing Ajax in? Your idea. Having to get rid of Ajax too? A result of your brilliant idea to include him, which you did, of course, before consulting me.”  
That bomb, I didn’t expect.   
I suppose it’s been inferred, this whole night since I first encountered Mari in the kitchen, that all this is Mac’s brain child. I just never wrapped my brain all the way around it, wasn’t able to get entirely to the root of what she was talking about. I’m just sort of sitting here, staring into nothing, as they stare each other down, Mac’s arms crossed at his chest, his chin set stubbornly, Mari calmly smoking, meeting his stare evenly, not for a split second looking away.   
Finally, Mac fills in the silence. “It’s because you know he wouldn’t. One of us, we’d think of this on our own. Yeah, my idea, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have crossed your mind, right? He would have never thought of it, and if he did, he would have washed his brain out with soap, or whatever, you know that. That he even knows about this, it’s gonna drive him crazy for the rest of his life. So what if I need him? So what if you’re right about that? If you loved him, you woulda thought about all this before you said a goddamn word. Now it’s too late to take any of it back, and this’ll be on his conscience for the rest of his life, you know that. You and me, we can still sleep at night, as good as we ever sleep anyway, or sleep better, knowing what we know, knowing we’ve done what we’ve done. He’s never gonna have a good night’s sleep again.”  
It’s not so much the fact that they’re arguing about me as if I were a child that’s bothering me ~ or rather, Mac’s doing the verbal arguing, Mari’s just fighting back with her stubborn, unwavering stare ~ but more the assumptions they’re making. Oh, he’s right, I’m sure as hell never going to forget this, and while maybe I will sleep well despite it all, yeah, it’ll weigh on my conscience forever. The assumption of Mac’s that bothers me is that it was their choice to make for me. Because if this is something they’re going to do, if this is a risk they’re going to take, I’m damn well going to be there, if not to help, at least to catch them when they fall.   
In the silence following Mac’s monologue, I hear a phone vibrating against something, and Mari pulls a slim flip phone from her boot. Since when has Mari had a cell phone?   
“Yeah,” she says into it. “In 20.” Pause. “Well, almost as planned, small change actually.” She looks at me. Mari knows what I meant without me having to have said a word. And I nod. “Matt’s coming with. Yeah, I know, our show now though not yours, so whatever. Later.”  
She flips the phone shut, smiles tightly at me.   
Mac rests his head against my shoulder, again gripping my hand like a vice, and sighs.   
“If anything happens to him cher, I will never, never forgive you.”


	16. Chapter 16

SO. 16, NOW, I GUESS…

Time passes, measured into minutes and hours, running past you on the clock tick by tick, so you know it's all even. You know by the clock that in truth, one minute never lasts an eternity, time doesn't ever actually fly, even when you're having fun. But holy hell, sometimes you'd swear something was off, that something was broken in the time/space continuum or whatever. Like tonight, say. It's been too long, I think, as we crunch through the gravel on the little pathway from the back deck's steps to the back gate. It feels long enough by now to be nearly over, when apparently it’s just begun. And it’s not just time that’s off. It’s like the dark is too dark tonight, the quiet is too quiet. While this little house seems immersed in residentialia, this close to the heart of a city, it never makes much difference whether the moon and stars are out because you can’t see much of them anyway. But tonight I think they’re probably hidden in every neighborhood anywhere, it seems so dark out. Even the streetlights, house lights, headlights seem dimmer and fewer and further between. And with that seeming darkness there’s a sort of muffled quality. Our neighborhood, while not loud, isn’t quiet, being too close to downtown, three major hospitals and a college or two, so that there’s always a sort of overflow of background noise, but at the moment the only sounds in my ears are the steady crunch of gravel beneath six feet, Mac’s still-raspy breathing, and a light jingle from the keys Mari is shifting from one hand to the other. I look up at the sound and she tosses them to me. They shine only dully in the light from the porch as they travel in an arc towards me, and when I catch them neatly ~ though with far less sound than a fat wad of keys should create against my calloused fingers and knife-scarred palms ~ I see at a glance they’re Mac’s.   
“What for?” I can’t help asking. I suppose I want to hear the reasoning she invents for it.   
“You drive better than either of us,” she says, and that’s true enough, because Mari doesn’t drive every day, these past few years rarely ever, and Mac drives like my mother, that is, like every person who passes him is personally insulting him, and with total faith that everyone else on the road will automatically make way for him, thus rendering moot the use of rearview and side view mirrors and over the shoulder glances when he, himself, passes or makes illegal turns. And then he innocently wonders why he’s being honked at. The boy’s got no concept of road karma.   
The real reason, of course, for putting me in the driver’s seat is to keep me out of the way. As long as they might need to leave someplace fast, they’ll claim to require someone waiting with a car. Having me be the one waiting with the car keeps me out of the way. I find myself taking this philosophically though, as we approach Mac’s Hyundai, parked a block over and up. I mean, as far as things go, how much use would I actually be elsewhere? I don’t know anything about what they’re doing, how they plan on doing it. I don’t know anything about security systems, and it sounds like weapons are only a backup measure here (and while it’s true I’m handy with both guns and knives, we all know how well I’d do aiming a gun at an actual person, and as far as knives go, people are vastly different than wood). Too many people, especially people as ignorant as I am of the plans and procedures of this thing, will probably spoil the broth. Or ~ hell, you know what I mean. Either way, I’m perfectly content being relegated to designated driver. It puts me in proximity, after all, which is all I really wanted ~ besides, that is, keeping them home tied to the radiator, which I actually thought about for a second there.   
I unlock the doors, Mari climbs in front and Mac in back, and I start the engine. And we just sit there, for a long moment, while it idles.   
“So?” Mac says finally, poking his head between the front seats. “What the hell are we waiting for?” His voice, impatient, grates a little.   
Mari giggles. “I guess we should probably tell him where to go.”   
“Oh my god.” Mac flops back against the seat, sounding so much like Paulo in one of his huffs I almost giggle too. I find myself exchanging a knowing look with Mari, but almost immediately sober considerably, because Mac’s impatience is justified. I have not a clue in hell what I’m doing. I just wish he weren’t being such a little bitch about all this.   
And it’s for that the levity is justified I think. It’s where it’s coming from: partly, that surreal, floaty feeling of the past weeks, but partly (and this is where the knowing looks come in between Mari and me), the memories it dregs up, from a time when levity was expected, was the purpose of midnight errands like these ~ whether it be as light as toilet papering Mac’s math teacher’s house, or a little heavier, like those times the two of them stealthily relieved a local convenience store of a 24 pack (I was the getaway driver once upon a time then too) ~ or like these old scenes in that they feature the same players, the same stealth modishness of it all, if not alike in the seriousness this evening should be granted.   
Back in the day, I used to annoy the hell out of Mac with my penchant for country music, and the way I know only most of the words to all the songs, and my hand reaches for the radio, but Mari grabs it. She knows what I was about to do. “I know you’re annoyed with us, but check it, ‘k? You can come or you can stay behind, but put whatever angst stuff you’ve got on hold till this is a done deal, right?”  
“Right,” I answer shortly, and put the car in gear. “Where to then?” Mari points, and we’re off. Following her directions, I find myself slipping into a sort of numb haze, like an injured person in shock after some accident (a car wreck, plane crash, boat capsization…), and rather than taking stock of his injuries, will just sort of continue on as if that hole bored in his gut seeping entrails and lifeblood doesn’t actually exist, or exist enough to matter. But I’m cold. It’s the edge of summer after a warm spring and I’m so fucking cold I’m clenching my teeth to keep them from chattering and my forearms are stinging from the goose bumps prickling up there.   
"April is the cruelest month," or so TS Elliot would have us believe, but it's got nothing on this year in June. I never liked Elliot much, except in that last bit of "The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock." There's this stanza towards the end that states simply: "I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled." I'm only 23, but I feel like I understand that line, some days, more than any other line of poetry I've ever read. Sometimes, in rough week, it'll get stuck in my head for days at a time, giving me the feeling of aching bones ringing with it somewhere at the back of my head.   
It's the way people can be about people, I think. Oh, not Prufrock, specifically, but in the way the whole, incomprehensible, sprawling muddle of Elliot's work is forgivable to me in the light of Prufrock and his singing mermaids, like how the whole of a person, as damaged, amoral and twisted as she may be, can be redeemed in the eyes of another by one simple aspect of her multifaceted character; how one person's life, bad or good, might be redeemed or condemned by one altruistic or heroic act, or one instance of cowardice or conniving, atrocity or revenge.   
Mari wouldn't know about Prufrock though. Mari doesn't like to read. It amuses all three of us that while my higher education and proposed career center around math and numbers, I spend a good deal of my time immersed in a book, and that while Mari makes a living (as much as one can, anyway) by putting words on paper, I bet the last book she read was probably for a class, and even then it was most likely the Cliff Notes version. It's the way we see the world I think. I look outward, I'm interested in other people and the things they do, what makes them work, what makes them treat one another as they do. Mari, on the other hand, is trapped in Mari land, and rarely sees anyone else except those who immediately concern her.   
There was a poet who lived here in the Pacific Northwest, Theodore Roethke, who is a favorite of mine, as far as poetry goes anyway. In a poem that begins: "In a dark time, the eye begins to see" (and it does, really), there is a line: "What's madness but nobility of soul / at odds with circumstance?"  
I see her, in the stillness that defines her when she's for once at one with herself, when all the parts that make up Mari Macy speak at the same time, in the same voice. Her chin is lifted, head cocked, as if listening, but there is nothing to hear but nothing so it all must be inside. Her eyes are alight.   
And then there's Mac. And I'm wondering, how can you know a person for so many years, be closer than brothers to him, to know what will make him laugh or cry, what will cause him to be thoughtful or send him into a fury, to love him so much you find yourself willing to kill for him, and take on all the consequences that might come along with it, without ever having known he could do the same on a whim? Though Mac's whims do tend to take on epic proportions: randomly taking off to New York, for one; his first boyfriend; kicking me out of my own home; killing Larry... He is erratic, he is obsessive, he is compulsive, and he breaks easily. All these things I've always known. I just never realized, I guess, all that added up to, or stemmed from maybe, a certain sort of insanity. If the boy's not as crazy as Mari, he's more so. I don’t know which is blinder: love, or me. But if I've discovered one thing about myself tonight, it's that maybe I'm a little mad myself, because given the choice between keeping my hands clean or having a hand in taking a life so the two of them can sleep better at night, there is no choice, because sure as hell not going to let them go alone and sit here chewing on my figurative fingernails all night ~ no, say it like it is Matt: dying every fucking minute not knowing if they're ok. There's no justification in my mind, like "She's so crazy it won't make any difference to her or anyone," or "She would've killed Mari first, would still kill her if she ever got out," though I won't lie, I do attempt to soothe myself with these platitudes. I know, if I can't find some way to divert them (and I know too, I can tell, there's little hope of that at this point) I will, straight up, have a hand in taking another life, snuffing out an existence just as vital, just as valid, just as significant as my own, or, for that matter, that of a possum rooting in the trash.   
“A man goes far to find out what he is ~ / death of the self in a long, tearless night..."  
By this point in my thoughts, I’m realizing Mari’s pointed me off the freeway much sooner than I expected. This is the Milton/Fife exit, at least 20 miles before I expected to turn off in Olympia. I guess I haven’t been paying all that much attention, just following Mari’s pointed directions, with a murmured assist at times. We’re driving down an old highway, the sort of stretch of road that always reminds me of a ghost town. Back before they built the interstates, these roads were the only way to get around. Before chains of McDonalds and Comfort Inns took over, people ate at places like Auntie Em’s Diner or stayed at the Tall Firs Motor Inn, and if you found another place nearby of the same name, it would be a hell of a coincidence. The corpses of these places still molder along some fractured stretches of highway, now renamed “Old Hwy XX” like an epitaph. Some of these haunts of travelers of old are even still gasping out their last breaths, already dead but not quite aware of it, never more than a few cars in their lots at a time, patronized now only by the nostalgic, the desperate, or those who are merely cheapskates. This one, bearing the unlikely moniker of Daisy Chain Inn, the one whose lot Mari is directing me now to turn into, is one such: a long, low, dirty yellow building, paint chipped, neon vacancy sign half dark, so that it reads “acan,” parking lot containing a total of four cars. The door of one room is boarded over with a graffitied slab of plywood, and the cinderblock planters surrounding the attached office are cracked and crumbling (the sign that states “Office” with a too-obvious pointing arrow is cracked in half, so it only says “Off” but I get the picture). The planters are sparsely filled with stunted, brown shrubs.   
I drive past the “Off,” and pull into the space she points to. Before I can ask what the hell we’re doing at a dilapidated relic of a motor inn, she gets out, and Mac reaches for his door too, but she motions for him to stay. I automatically figured I wasn’t invited, and am therefore not disappointed, but he flops back against the seat, and I know his eyes are following her just as intently as mine, as she stalks up to a door, raps twice, and slithers through the answering crack, which closes quickly behind her like a one-time use portal to another dimension. I wipe my damp palms on my slacks, let out a breath.   
“Matty?” Mac says from the back after a long few minutes of silence, his voice low and gruff still, as if he’s been holding back a crying jag since he first walked in on me and Mari in the kitchen. Which, I guess, he probably has. Mac rarely lets it out, so when it’s there, it’s sometimes like it’s hovering in the background ~ of his words, his movements, his voice ~ for hours.   
“Yeah?” I don’t turn around, keep my eyes on the door she passed through. I can picture him too clearly to have to: I bet he’s leaning forward a little, his elbows resting on his knees, his fingers steepled together. The warm breath on the back of my neck is testament to this assumption. And I can imagine without looking his face half in shadow, except the occasional flash of streetlight falling across his anxious expression when he shifts, because Mac is never still, and it will be glinting against the shine in his eyes (the shine goes with the gruff and rasp in the voice).   
“Maty bab ~ Matty, I’m sorry ~”  
“You can call me baby as often as you want if you’re about to apologize for kicking me out,” I say, as expressionlessly as I can. I mean, for some reason, even though I know Mari’s already ripped into him for it, I can’t let him know how much he hurt me ~ or not even so much as hurt, but sucked the life out of me. I never felt as much wounded as dead: nerve dead, thought dead, feeling dead.   
After a moment, while I sit there relaxed against the back of the seat, feeling him tense, untense, open his mouth to say something, change his mind, he gets out of the car and lets himself back in, sitting now in the front passenger seat.   
“Matty,” he says, fiddling with the zipper on his black jacket (thin leather, skin tight), “I know I hurt you…”  
(You ripped him right the fuck in half, Mari had told him.)  
“I’m sorry I did, but I’m not gonna say sorry for trying to keep you out of all this shit.” His earnestness nearly turns my stomach, and it isn’t because he really believes what he’s saying, it’s because I never realized in all the years I’ve known him he would have a real, justified reason to say something like that.   
“We’ve been living in lies for years, Mac. You think that doesn’t make a difference?” I’m sorry, I don’t think it’s wrong to feel a little bitter, finding out your best friends have been murderers since high school and never said a fucking word about it.   
“Hell yeah it made a difference!” He’s half out of his seat now, twisted towards me, one hand gripping the e-brake, the other on the dash. “It kept you with us! Were you not listening to what I was saying to Mari back in the kitchen? Knowing you like I know you, Matty, you couldn’t have stood it. And feeling the way I feel about you and Mari like I do, there was no way in hell I could let us be apart. And her! She falls apart without you Matt. You’ve seen it. She busts her ass all junior and senior year to up her GPA to make it into the UW so she an be near you again, but no, Matty’s got his own fucking life, and his parties and his hos and his frat brothers and his fucking football team ~”  
“What are you talking about? You weren’t even there! And most of that was Mari’s idea anyway, the whole ’you life your life, I’ll live mine’ thing. We still saw each other.” I finish helplessly, because while my words are true, I’m starting to see where he’s coming from.  
“I talked to her more than you, and I was on the other fucking side of the country Matt. And you saw what happened to her in the end. She fucking lost it. She was nothing. I tried to be there for her, tried to be what you wouldn’t, but she went to pieces.”  
And then you left, and I went to pieces without you, so go figure, huh? I can’t speak the words though. My tongue is too heavy, my throat too tight.  
“I’m never gonna regret not telling you about any of this,” he says, leaning back finally against the seat. “My only regret’s gonna be that you ever had to find out about it at all.”   
It doesn’t help that, even though I disagree with a lot of what he’s saying, some of it rings true. It doesn’t help that he’s saying it now either, because he should have said it ages ago, instead of running away from it, to New York and then back again a second time, instead of letting it fester inside him unsaid all the while. Now is not the time, this parking lot is not the place to be slitting our emotional wrists all over each other. So I don’t say a damn word, hoping he’ll rant himself dry, and we can pick up where we left off later, assuming there is a later. While I keep telling myself this uneasiness, this amplified feeling of strangeness, is only an obvious byproduct of what they’re planning on doing tonight, I keep expecting something more, something worse.   
I reach for a cigarette, and realize I’ve left my pack in the truck and Mari’s is empty. “Shit. Maybe they sell them in the lobby.” This looks like the sort of shit hole that might even have a leftover vending machine from the 70s.   
“Matt ~” he says, reaching ineffectively for my sleeve. I can feel the slight tug of it slipping from his fingers before I slam the car door behind me, pocketing the keys.   
But as I stroll towards the office, striving for nonchalance, though I’ll admit to some jitters, because the longer this night goes on, the more it gets to me, I sight one of those aforementioned diners directly across the highway, and this one’s a diner-slash-lounge. I figure they’re bound to be able to support my habit, and carefully look both ways before jogging across the highway. No sense getting hit by a car when there are potentially so many other ways I could go out tonight.   
The lot’s surprisingly full for what the place looks like, and I figure it must be sort of some local haunt. Ajax’s truck is parked around the side of the lot, away from the other cars. I wonder if he was smarter for parking away from the meeting place, so as not to be tagged there, or if we were smarter for parking closer, so as to be able to leave faster if necessary. It’s only a passing thought though.   
The register has what I need, along with assorted packs of gum and candy, which I don’t need. As I’m leaving, having accomplished my mission in spare number of minutes, I spy a blonde pony tail whisk into the ladies room. It looks so much like the blonde ponytail of earlier today ~ and it’s amazing, that it seems so long ago, but it really was earlier today ~ I feel a little bit better. Her perky hairdo and pretty smile were probably the one bright spot of the last 20 hours or so.   
Pack of cigarettes in hand, I’m walking down the pathway in front of the motel room doors, muttering to myself about stupid little boys and their stupid little murder plots when I realize I can hear a voice coming from the room Mari entered several minutes ago. It doesn’t even occur to me not to listen. Ok, so it does, if I’m saying it, but this thought is immediately dismissed. I’m on unstable ground here, and any handhold I can grab onto I’m damn well going to.   
“It’s too fucking much girly,” a high, carrying voice twangs. I can’t imagine Mari letting anyone call her “girly” but there’s no answering protest, no space between that and the next, which is, “Just get me my loot and let me get the hell outta this town. Things’re too hot just now for my blood. Got the cops breathin’ down my woman’s neck. I just want my stuff now and to get fast outta here, ‘k now?” There’s a sort of intense, concentrated panic infusing his tone under the slimy veneer of his lackadaisical drawl. I know Mari and Mac probably don’t plan to let him out of the state alive, though neither of them ever said it in so many words, not straight out, and I guess maybe he at least senses that too. I lean back against the dirty, peeling siding of the motel, careful to make sure my shadow is cast away from the window, even though the shades are drawn. As I strip away the cellophane from the top of the pack, rolling it into a ball between my thumb and middle finger, my unease is amplified, imagining I’m hearing what are probably some of the last words of someone who’s essentially a dead man. And that there’s no real question about his fate in my mind, that’s fucked up too.  
Mari’s reply is unintelligible. She can keep her voice close when she needs to, to be heard quite audibly by the person she intends to hear it and no one else. I adjust the brim of my cap so it shadows my face as the night manager passes me on the walkway, keys jingling at his belt. Mac’s shape is barely visible through the tinted windows of his Hyundai, but I can just make him out, he’s curled up in the passenger seat, knees clutched to his chest, and he’s facing my direction. I can feel his eyes on me, bore through me.   
I wish to hell we had some time, some place to talk. I’ve never been in a fucking tailspin like this before. Same time, even though he pretty much put me in this situation, even though we’re not exactly on the best of terms at the moment, the fact he’s within sight, it comforts me some.   
“No way, nuh uh,” Ajax’s voice pipes up again. I straighten up a little in attention. “We agreed you hang onto the stuff as collateral till I came through on my part of the deal, and that’s fine. I don’t trust you neither. But little girl, my part in all this is DONE and I want my shit NOW. You said at the beginning you didn’t want any kinda cut even though I offered, and that’s a done deal then.”   
This catches me a little off guard. How are we here, and not at our ultimate destination, being, I’d assume, the Riverside Rest Home, where all this should be going down, rather than at a crappy ass motel? One would assume, that is, if he feels like he deserves the return of his collateral, the job IS done, anyway. So what the hell was his role in all this? I’d thought it was security, as McGee said it was his specialty, I think.   
“This is FUCKED UP girl, this is real, real fucked up. I may be a con man, I may be a thief, but I ain’t no murderer ~”  
Apparently his hick really comes out when he’s riled, despite the education McGee says he can claim.   
“~ OR no fuckin’ accessory to! One crazy lady’s one thing, but not no innocents, no way. You just lead me to my shit, the shit I stole fair and square, and I’ll be on my way, missy.”  
This time I can hear Mari clearly. “Kindly lower your fucking voice Mr. Jackson.”  
“Ain’t no one here but us chickens, Miss Macy.”   
The James Dean reference seems out of place, and for some reason it sparks a disproportionate amount mirth in the midst of all this desperate confusion, so that my held-in guffaw comes out as a snort. There’s a moment of silence, and I’m afraid they heard me, but apparently the estimable Mr. Jackson was only waiting for Miss Macy’s reaction, because he keeps on.   
“That’s why you chose this here venue in the first place, right? No one here but us. Though why we can’t’ve gone straight to that place in Onie-Alaska, or whatever you said it was, where for some goddamned reason you stashed the loot, instead of coming back here again, I sure as fuck don’ know.”  
Onalaska? What the fuck? They “stashed” the stolen stuff at MY house?  
Mari’s answer is clear still, though low again, so I have to strain to make out the words. “Because you know too fucking much Ajax.”  
Aw shit, here it is. I guess if Mr. Jackson’s done what he needed to do, Mari figures him expendable ~ or a liability, I guess, as Mari’s never been one to bother much about expenditures. I just didn’t expect to have to clean up a body before the main event, so to say. This thought leads to me wondering what they plan to do with Anna Macy’s body, and those of whoever else it is they plan on offing, if Jackson’s words are on target on that detail.   
“And that’s where you figured wrong girly. You ain’t gonna do nothing about me knowin’ too much, an’ I guess I know just enough. I knew something’ like this was gonna go down, and so happens I took out a little insurance policy.”  
I can’t hear her reply, but I can picture it, and it consists of nothing but one raised eyebrow, and perhaps the faintest hint of a taunting smirk.   
“I got a couple a your boys all trussed up like rodeo steers in the back of my pickup right now, eh?” His voice smacks of “How do you like that!” but me, I’m confused. Apparently Mari is too, though never flustered, not our Mari ~ or not any Mari anyway.   
“My boys? Really? So happens” pause, “I know exactly where the only two boys I have any concern over are right now. So I wonder,” Pause again ~ she must be smoking a butt ~ “just who you’ve got all tied up in your truck?”  
I wonder too. My hands are trembling a little as I light the cigarette I pulled from the pack I opened several minutes ago and have been holding on to ever since, so caught up in the conversation I forgot to light it till now. I wonder what Ajax’s expression looks like. Actually, I wonder what his face looks like, as it occurs to me I’ve never actually seen it before, not close enough to get more than a sort of coyote-like impression.   
“That fuckin’ John McGee, his little friend.”   
I almost chock on an inhale. What the fuck? Why?   
Mari giggles. That girl is full of giggles tonight, and it’s one of the factors adding to my nervousness.   
“They are yours, you can’t tell me they aren’t.” More sure of himself, less scared and pissed off, Ajax’s got a better handle on his grammar, though “can’t” still sounds like “cain’t.” Through a barely controlled haze of panic I can think of a dozen reasons right off the top of my head why they’re not, but right now I’m more concerned as to whether I have enough time to sprint back across the highway to untie them and somehow get them away from here. Maybe hide them in the bathroom of the lounge, call them a cab? Would Mac help? It sort of looks like he’s fallen asleep in the Hyundai. How much longer can this conversation go on, anyway?  
Mari thinks this is absolutely hilarious. Her face is probably all squinched up in mirth, as she gasps out between fits of giggles, “Oh you can’t be serious. Really?”  
“Well why the hell not?” Ajax sounds defensive and baffled. Bad move, buddy, never let your uncertainty show, never let a cat know you’re not 100 percent sure of yourself.   
“Jackson, you probably did us both a favor. That little pecker knows way too much. He’s been sticking his nose in our business all over town, drawing attention to us in not good places with all the wrong people, kicking up a hell of a lot of dust. His amateur sleuthing is probably the reason the cops showed up at my door tonight.”  
“Say what?”  
“No fooling. Anyway, you meant to get Matt, didn’t you? Yeah, no Jackson, you went there you wouldn’t be alive to even have this conversation right now, so maybe we both lucked out ~ you took care of our John McGee problem and you’re still alive because I’ve got Matt.”  
All this makes me feel guilty as sin. McGee and Paulo are in trouble because I snuck out on them. I think, in fact, if I hadn’t been so sneaky about leaving, they’d probably be asleep in their beds right now, or at least in someone’s bed, anyway, an actual bed, not the bed of a pickup truck.   
And now I’ve lingered too long eavesdropping rather than acting, because suddenly I feel he cold of steel on my neck, something hard poking into my back. “Hi, Matt.” The voice is feminine, sweet. “Don’t move. It’s a knife at your jugular and a gun at your back.”   
Another piece clicks into place. A Rubix cube, a jigsaw puzzle, a logic problem, whatever. I used to be good at all that shit. Apparently, applied to real life, I’m a dunce. The blonde ponytail bouncing into the lounge’s ladies’ room earlier was no coincidence. I’d forgotten that two females had committed those robberies. I’d even mused it was really unlikely Mac was mistaken for a female. I hadn’t bothered to look for the missing person in this equation, the other woman. Not that Iwould’ve had any good reason to suspect it was ponytil girl, I’m not blaming myself for that. The first time I ever saw her was in the bank today, and she gave nothing away. That doesn’t matter anyway. Even if I’d never seen her before in my life I’d still be standing here like an idiot with a little girl holding me hostage. I should’ve been on the lookout for another person, rather than letting her sneak up on me, weapons drawn.   
For some reason though, I’m not afraid. It may be chauvinistic, but I think it’s because she’s a girl. She’s also a lot smaller than me, and has chosen a bad position. I think I can pretty easily get away from her and flip the situation. I just don’t want to hurt her. I know, I know.   
“Hey there.” I’m surprised at how easy my voice sounds in my ears. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t seem to remember your name right at the moment.”  
She snorts, delicately, a derisive, ladylike snort. Obviously, this means “I’m not going to tell you.”  
“Don’t say another word. Just walk real slow now to that door right there and knock on it ~ two raps, please.”  
I picture that request made with that pretty smile of hers, though I can’t see her face. Someone’s a little dictatorial, and anal: x amount of quarters exactly (please), two raps (please). More OCD than Mac, who, by the way, I can see in my peripheral vision. The shadow of him hasn’t moved, it’s still curled in the same position, but he’s tensely alert now, he’s awake, I can see it in the set of his shoulders, his fists clenched together. I’m hoping he’ll just stay in the damn car, while at the same time I’m hoping he’ll rescue me. I don’t want him hurt, but I don’t want me hurt either, you know?   
"Knock," she orders again.   
Two raps.   
The door opens after a moment, a crack at first and then the sound of the security chain being unhooked, and it opens just wide enough for us to slip through. Ponytail shuts it behind her with a back kick, stands there, waiting for Ajax to say something, I guess. Ajax just looks pissed, and Mari's face has no expression.   
The air in the room is gray with smoke from their cigarettes, hazy and almost incandescent in the dim light of the one bedside lamp. It's a typical hotel room, if you were living in 1977, that is, with shag carpeting of indeterminate color, an olive polyester paisley spread over a bed with a visible dip in the center, and a smallish TV on a scarred bureau. There are two black canvas bags on the end of the bed, open. Big gun, my mind registers of the object to the left of the bags, little guns, of the two on the nightstand, framing an overflowing ashtray. I'm too overloaded for any other thoughts.   
"Shay girl, toldja to stay with the truck," Ajax says finally.   
"Well yes, and I would've, but I saw Mr. Matt lurking about outside. I thought you might want to know."  
I'm trying to decide how fast Ajax can get to any of the guns. I know I can get Ponytail ~ or Shay, apparently ~ in front of me, but that's not going to be much help if Ajax can get to his guns before I get Shay's in my grip. And then I see that doesn't matter anyway. He's got one on a harness I'm guessing, because his fingers are inching towards the inside of his jacket. And Mari's behind him, creeping towards the bed. And then I hear a scuffle on the other side of the door, and Shay must hear it too, because she lunges to the side and back as the doorknob turns, pulling me with her, but not fast enough, because the last thing I see, from the corner of my eye, is the door swinging straight for my head, and then everything goes black. 

* * *

“Matty, wake the fuck up.”  
It’s true, how when you’ve passed out, gone away, lights dark, voices can seem far, far away when in fact, whomever’s shouting is doing so directly in your ear. I gather, as I squeeze my lids more tightly together, that because I can feel her breath on my lobes though the sound is muffled, Mari is now speaking into mine, loudly, somewhat desperately, as a stage tech will into a mic that’s just gone out right before the main event, as if repeated cries of “Testing!” will somehow bring the malfunctioning mechanism back to life. When she resorts to shaking, I open an eye. Just one, mind you. Two would be more effort than she deserves.   
It seems like I was having a dream, or maybe it was only my life flashing before my eyes ~ prematurely, I guess, since I’m obviously still in this shoddy motel room, and though the carpet I seem to be laid flat upon smells like piss and smoke, it’s not bad enough to be hell or purgatory ~ but my life in one scene? Maybe it was interrupted, when whatever cosmic force that plays those films to the departing realized it was only a false alarm. I could see Mac up in an apple tree, little Mac, almost ten years ago Mac, shaking the thin, gnarled branches with a violent glee, a wicked green slitting his eyes as petals rain all down on us. Mari giggles, reaching up to him, and the hem of her shirt lifts with that movement, baring her flat white belly, as pink slips of plant matter softly caress our cheeks and arms and stick on our clothing and in our hair. “Cheap effects” is my only commentary or critique on this picture presented to me. It’s lovely, really, and I remember that day, touched by golden sunlight and that was captured perfectly, that antiqued golden sepia quality, I nearly felt the soft breath of a spring breeze on the back of my neck, but the sound is pretty poor, echoing and distant, like in your stereotypical movie dream reel.   
“Matty. Open them both. Now.” It’s obviously not a request, so I manage to comply.   
“What?”  
There’s generally an assessment that goes on upon regaining consciousness. When one wakes in a usual spot, this happens so quickly and automatically, as soon as one realizes he’s in the right place and time, it’s not even noticeable. When the place is completely foreign ~ and once upon a time (ok, only a couple years ago) waking up in a strange place was a regular thing, so I believe I know this ~ one must take more time in orientation, assessing the situation, discerning where one is and how he got there, when one is and what one steps one should take to return to normalcy. Sometimes, it really doesn’t seem worth the effort, and in fact, I’m pretty sure this is why a baby cries when he first wakes up. Either Mari’s not aware of this process and the extra couple minutes it takes, or she’s not inclined to allow me the courtesy of the time, because I’m yanked to my feet so hard and fast, her frail looking arm in fact as strong as a winch cord, that my already blurry vision goes black for a moment. I clutch at my head with both hands, blocking ear holes to keep my addled brains from leaking out.   
“Wake. Up.” Again, with the orders. I open my eyes and blink, taking in the scene around me. There’s something off here, a disturbance in the scene that wasn’t there when I went out of it for a bit. It’s still the same shithole room, but there’s a difference to the smell, the tang of iron, a certain something added to the airplane takeoff sound of the a/c unit I don’t quite recognize.   
And then I see him lying there. And then the world just stops.


	17. Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17? YES? FUCK. 

“For Christ’s fucking sake Mari, cover it up! Put pressure on it!”  
And the world begins spinning madly again, and everything is red.   
He’s curled up on his side, sort of like a shrimp, and writhing. There are low moans. I can’t see where the hole is. His tee shirt is covered in wet red. It’s really, really red. So’s the carpet around him. His hands and forearms are dipped in red. Mari’s hands are red. I’m red where she touched me.   
“With what?” she says. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands. She holds them away form her, reaching for nothing, fingers splayed. I thought she had more presence of mind. But her eyes are wild, showing too much white. Her lips are bloody. It’s her own blood, from where her teeth broke the skin.   
Ajax and Shay are gone, I see. No thoughts on that except it's one less thing.   
I rip the case off one of the pillows. It’s the cleanest, closest thing. “Put this on it. Pressure.” It’s the only thing I know to do, and that’s only from the movies. Except maybe blankets? He’ll be cold. There’s going to be shock, right? Is it the shock that makes you cold?   
She’s just standing there still, just staring at the dingy piece of fabric in my hand.   
“Mari! Fucking take it!” I shake it at her a little. This is ridiculous.   
Her bloody lips move soundlessly a moment, then, “Wha ~ I don’t know what to do with that!”  
In the background, I can hear him cry out.   
I want to cry. The frustration is killing the panic though. I was afraid I would panic, freeze. But Mari’s got that covered. I’m just frustrated. No, fucking pissed.   
“Fine. I got it. You call the fucking ambulance then.”  
She just stares at me.   
“Now, Mari!”   
She moves toward the bedside phone, and I kneel down beside him. She can’t help me.   
I can feel the warm wet on my knees through my slacks. His face is contorted, wet with sweat. He’s not my handsome boy right now. This is a gruesome parody of a child in pain. His strangled cries ~ whimpers, but more ghastly, gasping ~ twist at my gut. I grip his shoulder, still clad in leather. All Mari’s managed is unzipping the jacket. Do I leave it on? Yeah ~ shocky, cold. Leave it on. Push him on his back. I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. He resists some.   
“Shh, shh. Come on Mac. Lay back. Lemme see.” Like that time he cut himself pretty bad in the kitchen, he wouldn’t let me see. He held his hand up to his stomach, sort of curled himself in over it, like now. I thought that was a lot of blood. Fuck. I can see the place now. [UM, WHERE?] I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I mean, it’s all bad. What I mean is, if it’s bad or irrevocably bad. I fold up the pillow case. Sloppy, but whatever. Plug, that’s the concept Matt. Plug it up.   
"Meh, meh, meh..." He's pushing at my hands.   
"Hey Mac. Come on. If we let any more of this blood out, you're not gonna have enough. I know it hurts. I know. I'm sorry."  
His hands grip my wrists now, hard. He's not pushing though, just holding on. His eyes are squinched almost shut, glazed over sort of, but trained on my face. So I try to relax my expression. Even if he's going to die I don't want him to know I'm worried, upset, scared as all fucking hell. His lips are trembling, nostrils flared, teeth clenched. "Shh." I lean forward, kiss his forehead. His skin is cool on my lips. I'm starting to feel a freakout coming on. Why isn't he talking? In the movies, they always talk: screaming, whispering, grunting, crying, but it's words they say, not this constant "meh, meh, meh," coming from his mouth.   
"Mari, when did they say?"  
"When what?" She's sitting on the edge of the bed, her face in her red hands.   
"The ambulance?"  
"I can't call a fucking ambulance. Are you fucking crazy?" Her voice is calm now, she sounds like she's finally saying something reasonable, only the words coming out of her mouth don't match that tone. For a moment, I can only blink. Say what?  
"What the fuck? What do you fucking mean you can't call an ambulance? Are your fingers broken? I'm sure you've noticed Mac here has a fucking HOLE in his stomach. You gonna fix that? 'Cause I can't."  
"Police come with ambulances Matt. We can't have the police here. We'll all go to prison."   
Mental check: did she really just say that? I'm kind of thinking she did. She's still so calm, sitting there quiet, still, like she does, with blood on her hands. Maybe she's in shock too? Maybe she just doesn't get it.   
"Mari, love, this is real blood here. This is lots and lots of blood that's supposed to be in Mac."   
She stands now, moving about the room. Is she packing things up? She seems, yes, to be putting the guns into the bags, among other miscellanea.   
Mac is gripping tighter to my wrists, which seems to be not very tight at all but the best he can manage. He's shaking his head from side to side. It rolls back and forth on an un-bloodied patch of the shag carpeting. It seems like he's trying to open his eyes wider. That fucking "meh" sound still dribbles from lips, along with a little blood. I don't know if it's coming from inside or if he's bit his tongue.   
"Mari."  
"She's slinging bags over her shoulders now. This isn't her usual silence. Her lips are pressed together, she's purposefully not answering me.   
"Mari, call the fucking ambulance!" I'm almost shouting now.   
She whirls to face me, fierce now, dangerous again. "Will you shut the fuck up? Someone will hear you." She squats down beside me, intense, her face is inches from mine. I get the impression she's pulled herself together finally, but she's pulled herself in a direction that's beginning to scare the living hell out of me. I don't like the look in her eyes, I don't like the fact she's smiling now. "We are not calling an ambulance. Mac is dying."  
"We don't know that," I hiss back. Automatically, I've lowered my volume to match hers.   
"Matty. Mac. Is. Dying. We planned for this. We planned for all eventualities at the beginning of this. Mac and I agreed if something like this happened, it would happen. We ditch and run. No ambulances, no hospitals. This is it for him. You've got to understand this Matty: Neither of us are willing to go to prison, and that's what will happen. If they get Mac in this condition, they'll find out about Larry, they'll find out about my mother, they'll find out about the robberies, they'll know everything. These things have a way of coming out, you know that, especially if he's babbling deliriously in a hospital bed." She's looking into my eyes intently, holding them there to her, away from him. Oh so gently she reaches towards my hands, or Mac's hands on my wrists. I’m not sure, because I jerk away before she can touch either of us.   
"You're telling me you're leaving him here to die, to just bleed out."  
"Not just me. You're fucking coming with me." She reaches again, but I'm blocking her now with my body, my face even closer to hers, our noses practically touching, so close I can smell the faint iron scent of her bleeding lips.  
"No. Fucking. Way."  
I shift to the other side of him, between him and her, my back to her. My brain's stopped working properly again. That little survival-mode part of it tells me it's idiotic to turn my back to a wild animal. The logical part of my brain says this is still Mari, as insane as she is at the moment. Either way, he needs my attention, and she needs not to touch him. There's no attention to spare for her right now, except to keep her away from him.   
I don't think Mac wants to die. I think things change when you're lying there bleeding out on the floor of a cheap hotel room, you know? His fingers are still around my wrists, his eyes haven't left my face, despite Mari's attempted intervention. It's as if to him, she's not there at all. "Hey, hang in there, ok?" One hand still on the pillow case compress, I search his pockets for his phone. Of course I left mine in the truck. "It's ok Mac. We'll be ok, right? Just have to make a phone call and we'll have you all patched up and we'll figure all this shit out, right?" His phone’s not in any of his pockets. Fuck. I brush his hair back from his forehead, try to smooth the furrows from his brow with my thumb. And Mari, of course, has simply moved around to the other side of him, so she’s facing me again.   
“Matt. Listen to me. When they find out everything we’ve done ~ and they will if they get Mac ~ when they find out, you’ll never fucking see him again anyway. His life won’t be worth living anyway.”  
“You don’t know that,” I spit back. “He was a juvenile when you killed Larry.” She wasn’t, but she’s about to throw him to the dogs, and like she said earlier, tit for tat, right? Besides, she can still run. “And it’s not like you shot him. You didn’t kill him outright, he ~”  
“My mother’s dead Matt, along with two orderlies and another patient. And yes, I fucking shot her ~ a few hours ago actually. Two of the kills were his.” She jerks her head towards Mac.   
(“Meh…”)  
“What the hell are you talking about?”  
“It was the only way we could think of to make you come with us, if you thought we hadn’t done it yet, if you thought you could still stop us.”  
“If you’ve already done it, why the hell did you need me to come with you?” I’m reeling a little here. My entire purpose in this place, in this time, in this situation has been jostled out of the framework and I can’t make any sense of the picture anymore.  
“Because Ajax freaked the fuck out. He’s a thief, but he’s never killed anyone in his life. He was going to kidnap you and use you as collateral to get at the ~ well, you heard that conversation, right?” She sort of smirks at me.  
“Probably a lot of it,” I admit, glancing down anxiously at Mac, who’s grip on my wrists has loosened. Still breathing. He’s passed out. I hope it’s from the pain, which is better than the alternative.   
“He was afraid we were going to cut out and run with everything ~”  
“Were you?” I don’t know why I ask. Maybe if it’s because all this mess is because of that, she isn’t even worth ~  
“Thought about it,” she admits. “Probably not.”  
I believe her, mostly.  
She continues as if I never interrupted. It’s like this outpouring of verbiage has been blocked up so long she just can’t shut up anymore.  
“I assume when he couldn‘t find you he resorted to other measures,” she says. “You heard it, he didn’t admit to it, but I can’t think of any other reason he would’ve taken McGee and Paulo. He thought they mattered.”   
They do.   
She leans back on her haunches and lights a cigarette. “The only reason I can think of as to why he thought I’d give a flying fuck about John McGee is that he figured since he couldn’t find you, maybe you were with us, and maybe more in the loop than we said, had some influence…”  
They do.  
“But it worked out for the best. That fucking little mongoose got the police on our trail, when otherwise they probably wouldn’t have made the connections they did, not so fast anyway. Oh well.” She shrugs, blows out a stream of smoke. The ashes that fall from her cigarette make a faint sizzling noise as they fall to the damp carpet. “I’d say I wouldn’t worry about them, like I said, Ajax’s got no stomach for killing, but that Shay chick, she’s cold. I am sorry about Paulo though Mattykins. He was a good guy.” Unbelievably, she really does look remorseful.  
“Look,” she says finally, standing and stretching to her full length, arms above her head, the two black canvas bags she’s slung over one shoulder jostling against each other. “We have to get cleaned up and get out of here.” She stubs the butt of her cigarette out on the scarred wooden footboard of the bed, then looks down at her hands again finally, not with that sense of bewilderment there, like before, but with a sort of disgust, a little frustrated curl to the lip, like Mac when he comes home and finds someone’s messed up his kitchen. “No one knows we’re here yet. Ajax might be stupid enough to call the police thinking it’ll get us off his back but not till he’s got what he wants, not till he’s safely tucked away somewhere ~”  
“Off his back? Are we going after him?”  
“Matt. He killed Mac.” She says this as if it’s a duh-ism. And it disturbs me more than I can articulate, that she’s just spoken of him as if he’s already dead.   
“About those two,” I say, swallowing hard, “Shay and Ajax. What the hell happened there anyway? Where are they?” With Mac out cold, and Mari keeping me from phones, I have room to wonder about that. And in a sort of evil Catch-22, it’s keeping her, the longer she talks, from pulling me away from Mac.   
“Oh, let’s see. After Idiot there came barreling through the door without knowing what was on the other side of it, he got about to right where he’s laying now, had just enough time to turn around for Shay to look him in the eye as she got one off.” She squats back down, re-adjusting the bags on her shoulder. “Ajax freaked ~ as usual, he’s fucking skittish for a career con man ~ and got in front of Shay on his way out the door.” She lights another cigarette, calmly shining a smudge from her Black Flag zippo before she puts it back in her pocket. “I was aiming for her, but he got it in the back. Right shoulder.”   
Must’ve been aiming for Shay, again, right between the fucking eyes, I muse, and then realize her nonchalance is starting to rub off on me.  
“Shay had the door open by then though, before I could finish it, and she covered him. She was aiming at you, I was aiming at her…” For the first time since she got a hold of herself, since she turned into this weird, verbose, insane Mari, she seems a little bit disturbed by the events of the night. “She was aiming right at you, had a clear shot ~ I was behind you ~ so I had to let them go.”  
“And then what?” I can’t believe I’m asking the question, but the extent of her psychosis is fascinating ~ and it’s distracting her from Mac. “ I mean, what happens after we get Ajax off our backs?”  
“Oh, that comes later.” She waves her hand carelessly, and more ashes sizzle on the carpet. I don’t see why I didn’t see earlier Anna Macy was already dead. No longer suppressed by the shadow of her living mother, this is the real Mari coming out: careless, childish, living life on a whim.  
“There’s no big rush on that, he’ll be too busy covering his own tracks to worry much about us for a while, and even if he does call the cops there’s not much they can do about it on just a tip, especially if he doesn’t know where we are, and he can’t prove anything without turning himself in.” She stands again. “First, you and I get the hell out of here.”  
Again, there’s that implication that I’m going somewhere with her, without him. “You and I?”  
“You don’t think I’m leaving you here, do you? Matt, they’d grill you like a steak, chew you up and ~”  
“Where are we going?” I interrupt again, not wanting to think further about whether her concern is for me or what I’ll say about her.   
“Mexico, South America, you know, the places criminals go to get away from it all. Doesn’t Argentina sound nice, Mattykins? Chile?” She smiles sweetly at me, though it falters a bit when her eyes pass over Mac.  
“So what? Are we gong to sneak across the border?” I challenge, not that I care. I’m not going anywhere. It’s just to keep her talking. Though that’s not really so hard anymore.   
“No, I have papers for us.”  
“For me too.” It’s a statement, because I fully believe it, though I didn’t expect it. I don’t know why I continue to be surprised.   
“Prepared for all eventualities, remember? There’s a bag packed for you in the trunk.” She looks at me and frowns. “I’ll have to go get it in a minute so you can change out of those bloody things.”  
It’s like we’re playing the same scene over and over again: The Big Reveal. I thought it already happened once tonight, in the kitchen, but I guess this is the re-write. The scenery’s sure a lot more fitting. And again, I’m biding my time, drawing her out, playing her line, again with the futile hope she’s just fucking with me, that all this is a fantastical story and none of it is true. Except a couple hours ago, more or less, none of what she was saying then ~ or not all of it anyway ~ was really true, and the truth, or the truth she’s revealing this time, turns out to be worse than the lie.   
Mac stirs under my hands, as if on cue, his eyes opening a slit, his deep waking gasp ~ probably feeling the pain now ~ ragged.   
Mari shrugs the bags off her shoulders, squats down beside him. Except for her hands, the rest of her is meticulous, as if she’s been doing nothing more strenuous than sitting in a smokey café with her laptop all night. She pulls the browning from the waistband at the back of her pants, takes one of his hands in and curls his fingers around it. “Finish it Macsy, like we talked about, yeah? No prisoners.”  
Her eyes, in front of the madness, are filled with a funereal sadness as she reaches for my left hand and holds it firmly in her right, like looking for comfort at a deathbed, a graveside ~  
I’m frozen, this grotesquely melodramatic scene isn’t what I expected, not anything like, even after all she’s said ~  
He knew though. His eyes widen and then narrow, as he licks dry lips, sucks in a deep, rattling breath, and the gun wavers a moment in his weak grasp before he slowly brings it to his temple ~  
My eyes are darting between the two of them, both so still in what I think they expect are his last moments, like following the path of a warp-speed pingpong ball. Her eyes are sheened over, her lips faintly parted, she’s not breathing, as she waits for him to pull the trigger. His eyes are closed, those long black lashes of his even blacker against the sickly pale of his cheeks, breathing in and out unevenly, the barrel of the gun shaking against his skin. I have to do something, and I can’t decide what.   
If I hadn’t already been reaching for it, tensed to knock it away, I wouldn’t have been able to stop him. He’s always been damn fast.   
I suppose under pressure of death, even the dying can summon a last reserve of adrenaline. After the way he’d been lying there, couldn’t even talk, I wouldn’t have expected he’d even have the strength to pull the trigger. But as his index finger tenses, the wrinkles in his knuckles smoothing out the slightest bit as the finger begins to flex, with a whip-lash fast spin of his wrist the gun is pointed at her head instead. Right between the eyes.   
Like a volleyball spike, my palm is smacking his gun hand down, and Mari is yelping as she jumps up and back, her right hand clutched tight over the left side of her ribcage. "Mac, you little shit!"  
"God ~ Damnit Matt!" he says through gritted teeth.   
Her hand, wet with fresh blood, misses the grip of the browning as she lunges for it, skidding on hands and knees, till her face is an inch from his. He growls at her, low in his throat. "I am not fucking dying over this bullshit!"  
I'm standing, looming over the two of them, feeling a bit like a vengeful god punishing his children as I swoop down, grab the gun by the barrel, and clock Mari over the head with the butt. She goes out like the proverbial light, her body collapsing to the floor as I carefully set the gun on the bureau, panting. (I would've smacked the both of them but I figured at the last second Mac has already suffered enough damage for the night and check the impulse.)  
Mac lets out a breath, his head rolling to the side, staring at the crown of her skull, just inches away from her nose. He blinks twice before he shuts his eyes. "Ow."  
"I fucking bet." I kneel down, check her pulse and breathing, of which she's still doing both, I'm relieved to find ~ pulsing and breathing, that is, and nothing else now, thank god.   
The door rattles, and I jerk towards it, my mouth gone dry, thinking it's that Shay girl with the itchy trigger finger come back to finish it, but it's only the night clerk's beady little eye peering through the crack in the door. Mari must've secured the chain after Shay and Ajax left, before I came to.   
"What the hell is going on in here? Someone called the desk and said they heard gunshots. You kids need to quiet down or I'm calling the police."  
"Uh, could you actually? I need an ambulance too."  
“Yeah, funny kid. Watch your mouth or I just might…”   
I can see the path of his eye rolling around the corners of the room, looking through the slim line of vision the crack between the door and the jamb affords, for the source of my voice. And then his sight must finally rest on the two bodies on the floor, because I hear an “Oh, shit,” as the door is shoved shut again, and the heavy pounding of feet rushing awkwardly away. I hope he remembers the ambulance part, I’m thinking, still staring at the door.   
“Matty,” he’s tugging at my sleeve.   
“Hey.” I look back down at him, readjust the makeshift compress. “Hangin’ in there?” He nods, swallows hard, blinks, and tears spill over onto his cheeks. I brush them away as gently as I can. There’s still so much blood. How long can he keep on like this? How much blood can one not very large person lose before it’s too much?  
“Matty,” he says again.   
“Yeah?” It croaks out. My throat is dry, my tongue is dry and heavy, my lips feel stiff and crepe-like. I’m torn to pieces. I don’t want to leave him, but I’ve got to get to McGee and Paulo. After all, this is mostly his fault, and none of theirs. But still, if it weren’t for them, for McGee and Paulo, I’d stay right here, I wouldn’t go anywhere, I wouldn’t let that ambulance leave without me in it, no matter what the consequences.   
“I’m sorry,” he says.   
“I know Mac.” Of course, I’d be sorry for anything I’d done that resulted in a hole in my stomach as well.   
“I prob’ly woulda killed myself later if I’d actually shot her. I just…”  
“I don’t want you to die either.” I brush back the hair sticking again to his clammy forehead. “I wouldn’t have let either of you hurt you.” Hurt you more than you’re hurt already, anyway.   
“Better me than you,” he says.   
I would disagree. I would give anything to have never known about any of this (like he wanted in the first place), I would give even more to have him come back to me without me having known a damn thing about the events of this evening prior to my involvement, to have never had him find out in the first fucking place about Mari’s mother’s taunting phone call, and therefore to have had him never have the fucking brilliant idea of killing her in the first place. I never wanted to know the depths of Mari’s insanity. I never wanted to see the cold ruthlessness lurking inside Mac. I never wanted any of this, but there’s no fucking us fantasizing about time warps I’d like to pull us all into, to stretch that happily-ever-after-for-now we managed to reach only a little less than a year ago to forever, because we’re here now, with blood on our hands (yeah, literal and figurative) waiting for judgment, again ~  
And shut the fuck up Matt, I’m forced to tell my tangent bouncing head.   
“You’re thinking too much Matty, you’re worrying. Just stop it,” he says. “You need to leave now.”  
His voice reminds me of the whisper mine was those few weks ago when I was sick, that croak and near-silent rasp. “It’s gonna be fine,” he says. “You’re gonna get out of here in about 60 seconds, go home like you were there all night, and I’m gonna go to the hospital, and you’re gonna swear on your mom and Celeste you’re gonna visit me in jail.” He grins at me, barely a shadow of that cocky grin of his, but I can see it faintly there behind the pain. “Whatever you do, don’t talk, ok? You were home all night, you don’t know anything.” I nod. I don’t think he knows Ajax has Paulo and McGee. And I’m not going to worry him by saying a word about that, because if he knows anything he’ll know what’s going to happen next.   
It was a long speech he just made, it seems to me, for someone who only a short time ago could only moan and cry, but I’m going to assume his period of passed-outedness rested him a bit, I’m assuming his earlier inability to speak was a combination of pain, shock and panic, a better alternative for my current mind state than presuming duplicity on his part, because there’s always the chance he was faking it, hoping Mari would presume he was further gone than he really was, and not force him to the point she did, or tried to. I can tell myself whatever happy stories I want at this point though. Figure I deserve that much. Hell, my world’s crashed and burned. This is beyond turning to shit. This is disintegration.   
One thing I have to know before I go, though, “Mac, did you and Mari really stash the stolen shit at my moms’?”  
A weak chuckle that turns into a dry gasping cough, then, “At the firing range. Shed on the west side of the property. Chained, padlocked, keys on my key ring. Keys in my pocket.”   
How oddly fitting, the instruments of our present downfall at the site of our initial coming together. I pull the keys from Mac’s jacket pocket and transfer them to my own.   
“If you’re telling the cops… Matty baby… please, anonymous tip. You’re NOT involved.” His hands clutch at my wrists as before. The grip is weak as before. The adrenaline rush of the near-shooting of either himself or Mari must be fading.   
I wish I could, I wish I wasn’t, love, but McGee and Paulo tied up in the bed of that ancient orange Dodge pickup render that wish moot, null, void ~ unvoicable as well, of course, so rather than lie I only nod, brush his hair back one more time.  
“You know I love you, right Mac? More than anything. If I could get you out of this, no matter what the cost, I would, but there’s no way around the fact you need a hospital.”   
“it’s not your fault.” He pauses, eyes rolling over in Mari’s direction, implying fault, I assume, then looks back at me, “and I wish so much, all of this went down without me having to hurt you like I did. So pointless anyway…” He looks worried suddenly. “How long’s it been? You gotta go. Now. Take the browning. It’s the only thing in here you touched, right?”   
He’s right, besides the pillow case, and himself. I nod. They’re not gonna print the pillowcase, right?   
“I’ll cover you. I’ll make some shit up. They’re not gonna listen to Mar anyway. Second she killed her mom she fuckin’ lost it. Hasn’t made any fuckin’ sense in hours now.”   
I would differ on that opinion myself. Mari of the past few hours doesn’t jive with the Mari we’ve known the past 10 years, but she has been making sense, of a rather cold, brutal, frantic sort. But if you put her past against Mac’s, put known character against known character… fuck, “No point crossing bridges yet love,” I say, bending down to squeeze his hands one last time, place them on the pillow case. “Hold this down, k? Don’t move it, just push down. Plug up the hole a little longer, right?” I kiss his forehead again, and he scowls.   
“My mouth, you asshole.”  
Ugh. Not the kiss, because while bloody tasting, it’s soft and warm, poignant and weirdly arousing, and in some twisted, masochistic way I needed it. I needed to feel his lips on mine again. What is it about a kiss that makes a goodbye feel that much more like someone’s grabbed your guts in both hands and wrung them out like a washcloth? The “ugh” is because the sinking scene from “Titanic” just superimposed itself on my brain, and I feel like I’ve now got the know-how to do the heroine’s role in that icy water bit better than Kate Winslet ever dreamed right now.   
“Love you brat, see you soon,” I say, speaking past the knots in my throat, even though it might be a lie.   
“Love you too baby.”  
And I grab the browning, making sure the safety’s in place and stick it in my waistband, and I leave him there.   
The front door’s a bad idea, because I’ve lingered too long and I can hear faint sirens. The bathroom, thank god, has a window, and I find myself humming “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” (remnant of April’s Beatles obsession) as I wrap my hands in washcloths to open it (prints) and hop out, landing on the hard packed, weed covered ground at the back of the motel in a crouch. I can hear the paramedics or the police banging on the door. Oops, should have unhooked the safety chain before I left. That pounding’s going to be hell on poor Mac.   
“Our” hotel room is at the opposite end of the long, narrow building as the office, and as I walk around the side of the building and peek nonchalantly around the edge, I see there are, so far, only two police cruisers and one ambulance. The medics are leaning against it looking bored, and two cops are meandering about with their hands jammed in their pockets looking restless, while another listens, looking annoyed, to the night clerk, who’s gesticulating wildly. A fourth cop is just hacking through the door chain with some handy-looking tool. I’ll give the Daisy Chain that: as dilapidated as it is, it’s got some damn sturdy locks I guess.   
“Oh shit. Bring the gurney!” I hear, and all the bored uniforms jump to attention as the medics head for the back of their van. “Gonna need another ambulance… call for back up… crime scene… fucking big guns here…”   
What? They didn’t believe the fat, freaked out hotel clerk’s 3am tale of blood, gore and mayhem? Luckily, in the mayhem, no one notices a hunched-over kid in a dark jacket and ball cap heading for the little dinged-up Korean wind-up car parked a few yards to the right of the commotion. If any of them notice me, they’ll probably be glad I’m not stopping to gawk, and only realize they’ve lost a potential witness later.   
Before starting the car, I check the glove box, and just as I suspected, Mac’s got wet naps. I can pull off at a rest stop or something at some point and clean off some of this blood. Blood can’t be much worse than buffalo wing sauce, right?   
One of the cops does try to flag me down on my way out of the lot (I back out slowly, as if hungover and tired after a midnight whoring tryst) but I wave cheerfully and drive on by, narrowly missed by a third police car that careens like the bat mobile into the parking lot, sirens wailing and lights whirling. I guess when shit happens out here everyone gets a little worked up. No one follows me as I pull out onto the highway.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love how Matt consistently points out everything that's wrong with this book in his inane blathering about movies.

18\. 

My chest feels like it's about to explode with the way my heart is pounding: one beat after another, like footsteps, like a wildly swinging metronome, or the pendulum of a small clock, so fast you think it's about to tick out of control , flip a complete 360 and fly off through the air to hit the ceiling and fall quivering, dead to the floor. My heart stays fast within the cage of my ribs though, despite this mad pace; it's my stomach doing the somersaults, sloshing bile like a water wheel, the sprays of it burning my throat. It stays in though, I've got a handle on it, on that and the wheel of Mac's Hyundai, a tight grip, though my fingers are close to numb with the way I'm clutching it, and still covered in his blood. I'm drenched in blood, and the dampness of it on the knees of my slacks, on my shirt, is cool, clammy against my hot skin, like the way your clothes are when you've finished a jog, and my breathing's the same: trying to come in fits and gasps, but I control it, in through the nose, out through the mouth, slow and steady, trying to ease the burn in my nostrils and throat, the ache in my right side, swallowing convulsively between to push back the burn though I've got little to swallow, my mouth is dry and there's nothing to drink, and it'd probably come back up anyway. The view from the window is a blur, peripherally, as I speed south on I-5. There are shadows there, of trees and structures and occasionally other cars in the golden gray of pre-dawn, but the only things I see clearly are the lines of the road ahead of me, the reflection in the rear view mirror where I keep a steady watch for the shape of trooper headlights, and my goddamn bloody hands. I can see the dark patches in the sporadic flashes of light from lamps over certain stretches of highway or passing cars. 

It's funny, how compared to that Tarentino-esque scene of less than a half hour ago, this drive seems surreal in comparison. Caught up in the moment, life was actually happening as I was living it, the blood on my hands and my clothes made sense in that scenario, whereas now, between the last thing and the next, bloody hands on the steering wheel make no sense at all, like that famous painting of the bowler hat and the suit with the apple between them (Matisse? No, I like Matisse. It's a Magritte). And like that bloody fucking apple, I can't see around these hands to what's behind or in front of me, can't let myself think the thought maybe I'll never see Mac or Mari again, can't see around the blood that's on them already to the new blood that may be on them soon, because if I think of me running to help McGee and Paulo in any terms of violence I'll probably lose my nerve, and therefore I can't think of anything at all, except that my hands look weird on this steering wheel, covered in blood, while everything else around me and out the windows looks like I'm just driving home for a visit. 

I can't swallow down the taste bile at the back of my throat. The cigarette smoke seems to burn my air passage as I suck it down compulsively into my lungs. Why do people smoke when nervous, distressed, anxious, bored, or exhilarated? It's like an ingrained compulsion. We suck things as babies ~ nipples, fingers, the corner of a blanket or the ear of a teddy bear ~ and some of us will suck till we die, as we die...

I'm not sure what purpose I serve here, if any. Most of what I've done so far involves fucking stuff up. I know, like anyone else, there's no point in "if only," but I don't think anyone, no matter how fatalistic, can help but to replay some fucked up situation in his head, over and over, this time with different actions, better words, all culminating in some preferable outcome. For example, if I'd never gone out with McGee last night, and gone back to my mother's to mope as usual, I'd have never convinced myself to go back to our house, would've never run into Mari there, would've never helped her convince Mac to take me with them, wouldn't have gotten in the way at the motel, and Mac would still be ok right now, rather than missing more blood than he can probably spare from a hole in his gut, and more than likely a one-way ticket to jail, don't pass go. On the other hand, at least according to Mari, if I hadn't gone home, Ajax and Shay would've (at least tried) to kidnap me up on Broadway, and who knows how Mac and Mari would've reacted and what kind of awful results that would've wrought, if there was a hostage involved they actually cared about. On the other hand, if I'd gone back to my moms' house, they would've probably nabbed McGee and Paulo in lieu of me anyway, and in that case I wouldn't even know the two of them were in trouble, seeing as Mari would've left them on the line no matter what. 

So maybe what ifs aren't so bad, because I'm beginning to see some sort of shit storm would've hit regardless, and at least in this scenario, I can do something, make some sort of restitution towards McGee for plunging him into this piranha pool of a problem he was only trying to help me with, if only in that I at least tried to pull him out. 

And maybe that's part of why I've always been a mess. I ran into one of my old teammates a few months back, he'd been a year or two below me, and told pretty high up in the draft for the NFL, but that he wasn't sure, considering the team the past season, and his own last couple games, if he was going to hold that position. 

I told him all anyone could do was try, and wished him luck. 

"Man, Munroe, that's always been your problem," he said to me. "You coulda gone a lot farther than you did, but all you do is try. You gotta just fucking do it man, there's no try about it."

He left me blinking dumbly in the wake of that Yoda-esque proverb, but I let it go before another fifteen minutes had passed and haven't thought about it since. He's right though. My life is a series of failed attempts and lucky catches. I've just got to do this, find Paulo and McGee, somehow get them safe, and finish it. Except, I don't have a plan to speak of. 

I'm feeling slightly rotten now. Before I just felt a little light-headed, giddy almost even, or maybe just spacey. Now that reality's starting to hit, my hands are shaking again and the lightheadedness is making me nauseated, like taking an elevator up several stories too fast while hung over, like a roller coaster ride after too much greasy fair food. If this were a movie, I'd be there already. There'd be none of this gut-warping tension as I wait through the drive. Doing something, anything, usually helps with this, you don't feel so fucking helpless, so tied ~ or doing anything, that is, except driving. A drive like this takes forever, endless miles of consistently looking over the shoulder, watching the speedometer, hoping no one stops me, wondering what I'll find when I finally reach the end of it. 

In the movies, the trip from point A to Point B takes a matter of seconds, if it's even shown at all. Sometimes you just see the actors slamming car doors shut at their destination. The only reason to show the space between is for something like witty banter between characters. Except I'm alone. Or say, someone's following your protagonist, like the police, or the bad guys. But I'm constantly checking my mirrors, and the road is clear of any sort of law enforcement, no troopers or deputies or regular cops even. And I'm behind the bad guys, I think. I haven't seen that sad old blue and orange excuse for a pickup once since the parking lot of the diner. 

Fact is, I hate movies like this. The main action's over, it's obvious the protagonist has lost the battle, but he keeps staggering on, something compelling him to follow through to whatever probably painful or final ending is awaiting him, even though it's clear this is a losing battle you're watching. I hate movies like that, that carry you through to the agonizingly bitter end, when everyone knows the audience knows how it's going to end. And there's always the hope, the bated breath, the way you find yourself wishing something's going to turn around. It rarely does, and if it does, you're left feeling unsatisfied with this unexpectedly happy ending because you're straining to suspend disbelief, while if it ends as badly as you expect, you're still let down, because it was a crappy ending. I hate a slow wind down, useless drama after a climax. End it with a bang and be done with it already. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a choice. I'm more or less obligated to see this through to the bitter fucking end. 

I switch on the radio, press the button to the preset classic rock station I programmed into Mac's stereo. Kansas blasts out from the speakers, the volume too loud the last time the radio was on, "Carry on my wayward son, there'll be peace when you are ~" Click. This is not what I want the escape and rescue song to be on my personal soundtrack.

Trees line the highway now as I press on south, through Thurston County, then on down through Lewis. And barreling down south on I-5 ~ or barreling in my mind, anyway, as the Hyundai is absolutely gutless, and I don't know how he can stand to drive it every day, regardless of the price of gas, though I guess that's something neither of us will be worrying about anymore anyway. Anyway, driving south as fast as I possibly can without attracting undue attention or taxing Mac's gutless little chariot beyond its limits, and mind finally moving from mundanity to mundanity and beyond the blood, I can't help wondering why I'm doing what I'm doing at all. I've been betrayed up one side and down the other, lied to for years... But this part's for McGee, I remind myself, and he never did a damn thing except be there for me when I needed him. 

And now I'm thinking about about what McGee said, though maybe that's because I'm on my way to attempt to save his stupid, nosy, narrow little ass (and never mind it was my issues that inspired that nosiness in the wrong places in the first place), thinking about that thing he said that bugged me for over a month about which one of us it was Mari was really after, and how I ended up deciding it was me who was the cad subconsciously sabotaging our trio. What was it she said in the kitchen, something about how she and Mac were supposed to share me? Could I really have been the ultimate goal of both of them all along? I don't fucking know what to believe anymore, with Mari saying one thing, Mac saying something else ~

And it can't be that they both just loved me, and that they never loved each other. that doesn't make any sense at all, considering the way Mac reamed me in the car earlier for ignoring Mari when we both moved to Seattle, especially considering they were willing to kill for each other. Though knowing those two like I know them now, since tonight, maybe exchanging help on murders is to them akin to me, frosh year, doing a frat brother's philosophy 101 paper in exchange for him doing my laundry for a month ~ which didn't work out so well either by the way. Mari and Mac are in the hands of the law and this second, while for the rest of frosh year my socks were a lovely shade of periwinkle and his philo prof's TA, who'd graded my papers the whole previous quarter, tagged my writing style immediately, as much as I'd tried to dumb it down, and we both ended up in front of the academic review board. 

And then I push all that out of my mind, trying to think about something useful, something that will help me obtain my goal of Paulo and McGee. For instance, I have no idea how much farther I have to go before I catch up to them. I try to calculate the speed the Hyundai can go versus the speed Ajax's dodge can go, factoring in the way I've been going just over the speed limit, or a little faster in the places I know for sure there are no cops, and I know that heap of Ajax's can't do 60. I don't know, however, exactly how long I was out between the time they left and the time I came to, can't really be sure how long Mari and Mac and I were in that hotel room alone, have know way of knowing if Shay and Ajax have stopped somewhere to tend to Ajax's wound. For all I know, I could be overshooting, though that possibly may work with any plan I manage to come up with between here and there. I have a feeling though they're not going to stop for long if they do stop. Ajax was damn anxious to get to his "loot." Either way, it's impossible to tell where they are in relation to where I am, but my brain keeps gnawing on the possibilities, finally occupied enough with something to keep it from wandering to less pleasant places. 

EVERYTHING ABOVE HERE MUST BE DRASTICALLY CULLED. THIS IS GOING TO BE WAY TOO LONG AS IT IS. 

The sky is light as I turn east, onto Highway 12, over halfway there now. It's the sort of light that happens right before the sun breaks over the horizon, but from the look of things, it's probably not going to be too hard driving into the sunrise this morning. There's a chill to the air coming through the window I've kept cracked open to let the cigarette smoke out, and the sky is gray and hanging low to the ground. This isn't the gray like a storm's brewing, as much as it feels like that inside. Mother nature's not about to burst into a temper tantrum. this is more like a pout, a sulk, after too many days of weatherly good mood. The air smells like rain, and while the fresh, earthy smell finally clears my sinuses of the scent of blood that's been lingering there since I left the Daisy Chain Motel, a downpour, even a tame one, isn't going to be good for any proposed plan, and I'm wincing, imagining the Hyundai's little tires trying to churn through mud and water up the old logging road that leads to my destination. 

"Prepared for every eventuality" is what Mari said, and while it sounds like an excellent idea in theory, my mind just doesn't work the way it needs to to form the plan I know I need to come up with, to put any such plan into practice. I've always been better at just winging it. Although winging it might not even work, considering I'm not even 100 percent sure I remember how to get to the old firing range. Even as isolated as I remember it being, and as abandoned as it probably is these days, it's still got to be accessible, if Mari and Mac got to it, and probably in this very same little toy car. As I drive past the turnoff point for Onalaska, and the road to my house, it comes back bit by bit, and I discover I don't even have to think about where I'm driving, the turns just come automatically, until I'm headed up the old, rutted winding road to the old range building. It seems like such a long time ago, the last time I drove up this road. For a while, since even before Mari and Mac and I met, there's been a newer, better shooting ranger closer to civilization. But the Young Guns Rifle Club of East County met here because the club leader preferred it (and now I think about it, that's kind of creepy, a middle aged man, a bunch of teenagers, and racks and racks of guns miles from anyone, like the perfect set up to a horror film). Because that's where we started out, the old range, that's where we kept on, Mari, Mac, and I, when we couldn't shoot at the makeshift ranges at Mari's house or mine (we stayed away from Trucker Larry's domain at all costs, even when he was trucking), until we moved away. Everything seems so familiar, the thickness and wildness and soft greenness of nearly old-growth trees on each side of the narrow driveway, the rotted out stump with the smaller tree growing from its center that marks the halfway point up the road, that I'm wondering how I ever thought I could forget the way. I don't, however, remember this road being quite so rutted, and I clench my teeth to keep them from gnashing together. It's like a reality check, reminding me this isn't a trip down nostalgia lane, but a rescue mission, however half-assed it may be. 

There's a turnoff before the actual driveway to the barracks-like building and its accompanying cluster of outbuildings. To take the road to the official driveway and parking lot is another half mile or so, but turn off here, and I can walk through thick brush and trees ~ cover, I hope ~ to where Ajax and Shay are surely parked ~ again, I hope ~ and they'll never see me coming ~ if I'm lucky. There's even a pathway worn through from countless others doing the same thing ~ not likely sneaking, I mean, but parking and shortcutting. It's hard to push through as silently as I need to; the path is more overgrown than I remember and my work shoes aren't making it easy on me, but eventually I come close to the clearing the path feeds out into, where the actual parking lot is, or what passes for one, barely scattered now with the remnants of what was once probably a thick gravel covering. And then I see the pickup, and Shay and Ajax still in the cab of the pickup, and my heartbeat quickens a little knowing now how closely I must've come to overtaking them. They're not paying attention to anything but Ajax though, either of them. From what I can tell, Shay's doing something with his shoulder and some bloody rags, and I can hear Ajax cursing up a blue streak from 20 feet behind and to the north of the truck, even though all the windows are shut. The only thing I can think is that now's my chance to get as far away from Ajax and Shay as possible, and find a good spot to hide and watch and wait for my chance. 

The parking lot is between me and the shed I've eyed as the most likely place Mari and Mac stashed the fruits of their burglaring labors, the last building in a small group of weathered, nearly collapsing outbuildings, including a genuine outhouse, scattered at random behind the long narrow bulk of the main building, and I decide on a thick covering of brush as my stake-out spot. The sky hasn't lightened much since the sun began rising, and the clouds are thick overhead, proof that we're still in Washington, rather than Kansas or Oz or the Twilight Zone, and God Bless this state and its tendency for gray rainy days appearing out of nowhere even in the middle of what was till now a bright hot spring. I take advantage of the overcast sky and the rising wind and the fact that Ajax and Shay are obviously occupied with Ajax's holey shoulder in the truck with the windows rolled up, and scamper as fast as I can ~ yes, scamper ~ feeling like an idiot in my work clothes hunched over like a cripple as a push my way towards the shed, ducking under low branches and pushing through bushes with abandon, praying the relative dimness of the promise of a morning rainstorm is providing enough shadow for cover, hoping the heavy breeze pushing the trees around overhead is masking my noise.

I’m crouched behind a bush when Shay and Ajax finally approach ~ ineffective cover I know, but the gloom and the mizzle has the two of them keeping their heads down. From this angle, or I suppose from any angle but it’s from this particular one I’m actually paying attention to this ~ they’re a totally mismatched pair, the cute little undergrad and the snaky ugly cowboy. It occurs to me also, at their approach, that I’m a fucking idiot, because they’re walking towards me, away from the truck, while if I’d stayed where I was, they would’ve been walking away from me and the truck both. And I don’t give a shit about what’s in that shed. I am, however, glad they seem to, because they’re paying a lot of attention to trying to figure out which outbuilding is the cache, and not a lot to anything else. And I'm sure as hell glad I bit the bullet and went after McGee and Paulo, because it doesn't sound good for them otherwise, from the sound of the words drifting faintly to me from where the stand, ten or twelve yards away

"What the fuck are we supposed to do with those to fags anyway?" Ajax says with a head shake indicating negatory as he exits what's probably an old tool shed. 

"Kill them." Shay says it succinctly, not with any fervor, as if she's enjoying the prospect, but more as if he'd asked, "What are you doing today?" and she'd answered, "Laundry." It stops Ajax in his tracks though, and he turns to face her full on. 

"Hey now, I don't know that we gotta go that far." He brushes the drops of rain from his short hair with one hand, sticks the other in his pocket, uneasy it seems from the way he's rocking back and forth on his boot heels. 

"What else are we going to do with them? She doesn't want them. If we handed them over to her, assuming we ever could find her, she'd probably kill them herself. You know it Alex." Shay's got her arms crossed at her chest and is tapping her foot impatiently, as Ajax opens the door to the outhouse. 

"Whew. That one's ripe." He's still uneasy, walking a wide circle around her as he makes for the next shed. "But her man, the big guy," he says. "They're important to him, those two fags."

"Fuck Alex." Shay shakes her head in frustration, stalks after him till she's right in his face. "Say I took two of your wife's friends hostage because they found out about us. Would you save them?"

There's a long pause, as he turns away from her towards the last shed.

"Exactly," Shay says, as if she's made her point, but I'm not sure if the pause is because Ajax agrees, or is just avoiding the question. He's pulling at the only door they haven't checked, the one furthest from the main building, the one I figured from the start was the one Mac was talking about. It rattles, chained shut. 

“God fucking damnit all to hell,” Ajax mutters. He’s hunched over the padlock, and from the way he moves I can tell that shoulder must hurt like a bitch, though it appears Mari must not’ve hit anything vital if he’s still this alert and agile. 

“What, would you rather they’d left a shitload worth of artwork and jewelry and antiques in an unlocked drafty damp shed, or a locked one?” Shay’s delicate laugh has the perfect mix of playfulness and derisiveness in it. This is what Amber the Viper could’ve been with a little more self esteem and a lot more class. “I should’ve gotten the keys from that crazy bitch before we left the motel but ~”

Ajax mutters something unintelligible but undoubtedly nasty, then, “Crazy fucking bitch is right,” he spits, scuffs his boot heel in the dirt. “Bitch was about to shoot anything that moved.”

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about Shay.

“Shit,” he says, straightening up, staring at the door as if his snaky eyes can charm it open, spits again. He shrugs, sticks his fingers in his pockets in that cowboy way, the thumbs sticking out, looks over at Shay. “Fuckin’ killed her own partner, anyway.”

Say what?

There goes the breathing. Every bit of air in my lungs goes out in a whoosh and I can’t for anything seem to suck in anymore, even if only to curse the buzzing in my skull, because it’s drowning out what they’re saying. Suck in, Matt, it’s not that hard, you do it fairly often, with all sorts of things up to and including oxygen. I’m just going to push what he just said away for the time being, I tell myself. I don’t have time to examine that bit of information right now. Though it occurs to me, a thought that slips in before I can put it away and lock it up tight, Mari very well could’ve shot Mac and lied about it, and I wouldn’t have known any better at all, if it weren’t for what Ajax just said. I was out from the time Shay went for me till I woke up with only freaked-out Mari and bleeding Mac, and Shay and Ajax haven’t got a good goddamn reason to lie because they were both there in that hole of a motel room, they saw what they saw, and as far as they know there’s no one around to lie to. But what the hell for? I'm shoving every conversation I've had with her or overheard in the past two weeks ~ about three, to be precise ~ out of my head, because I can't let myself think it could've been because of me. It was an accident. It had to have been. 

“…Don’t think he was actually dead yet,” Shay is saying, I think. My ears still have that rushing noise in them, despite all attempts to lock away any deep thought on the subject at hand. 

“Might as well of been. She’s not gonna get him to a doc. And the big straight one, what’s his name, didn’t look so hot now I think about it. Betcha she just left ‘em both. Speaking of, you keep that gun ready girly.” 

“She wouldn’t have left Matty. You didn’t see the look on her face when I aimed at him because you were halfway out the door.”

Ouch, point to Shay.

“She’s got him, and he’ll slow her down,” Shay reasons. “He’s just a big, sweet, innocent baby.”

“Just stop fucking around and go get my toolbox outta the pickup, willya?” He tosses her his keys, and she catches them with an underhand scoop. “It’s under ~”

“I know where it is,” she mutters, keys jangling as she stomps through the brush, passing perilously close to my hiding spot. 

The rain is beginning to come down harder now, the mist turning into actual drops I can hear hitting the forest canopy and falling through the foliage and branches as Ajax and I wait for Shay, and a big old drop falls right down the back of my shirt, causing me to gasp for breath and finally suck in a full lungful of air. It burns after the baby breaths I’ve managed since Shay and Ajax first opened their stupid mouths. 

“Hello?” Ajax calls, backing up from the shed door, turning full circle. I freeze, not breathing at all now, because I’m holding back an actual chuckle. I mean, if he thinks someone’s snuck up on him, does he really expect an intruder to answer? It’s times like these, laughing in the face of disaster, I wonder about my sanity.

Someone does answer though, and I almost jump and give myself away again, forgetting for a moment Ajax and I weren‘t alone. God, I’m losing it. “Right here, geeze,” Shay says, returning empty handed. 

“Hush up a minute.” Ajax holds his palm out to her and she halts, still. He shakes his head. “Must’ve been an animal or somethin’.” He turns his palm up to her and Shay drops a small box in it. That’s a tool box? Not gonna fit no ~ I mean, what the hell sort of tool capable of shearing through a rusty padlock fits in there?

He opens it and pulls out something that, from a distance, looks like that sharp thing a dental hygienist tortures your gum line with, and kneels down in front of the lock. Oh, right, lock pick. I forget he is what he is, some sort of security system wunderkid, and not just some dumb ass chicken shit trying to play cops and robbers. I realize, as he squints at the lock, Shay standing still beside him (though the hands on her hips give off a certain air of impatience) the only way I’m going to get McGee and Paul and get them out of here without some sort of confrontation is to learn how to channel the powers of Flash Gordon in the next 30 seconds. Otherwise, I’ve got from the second they enter that shed until the second they step out with their first load of “loot” to get two men, most likely bound and gagged, never mind that they may very well be of dubious level of consciousness, out of Ajax’s truck and almost a quarter mile through the woods to the Hyundai. I have to try though. I mean, for all I know, they could take fifteen minutes in there doing who knows what: inventory, indulging in a quick fuck, picking their noses for all I care. All I need is fifteen minutes. Even if McGee and Paulo are passed out cold and I have to carry the two of them one at a time to the car I think I can do it in fifteen minutes. 

I reach for the browning tucked in the back of my waistband, because the way things have been going today ~ hell, the way things have been going this year ~ I’m pretty damn sure I’m not going to get my fifteen minutes, and I’ll be damn surprised if I don’t have to at least wave it around threateningly, if not actually use it. As the lock falls open in Ajax’s hands, and they disappear into the shed, I creep as quietly as loafers allow through the undergrowth, though not too carefully. The rain, coming down harder now, is masking a lot more of the noise I’m guessing (hoping), and as soon as I’m past the last outbuilding and hopefully out of view I make a run for Ajax’s truck. 

It’s almost ironic, knowing that the whole time Ajax was fucking around with an old rusty padlock and a set of lock picks, I had the keys to the stupid thing in my pocket, attached to the key ring Mac gave me along with his car key ~ and as a side thought, how the hell did he think I was going to take the Hyundai home and not seem suspicious, seeing as the trunk’s full of fake IDs, clothes packed for a trip, and most probably, more guns… I stop short a couple feet before the truck, and can almost feel my mouth falling open in shock. Keys. Shay left the fucking truck keys dangling from the lock of the truck’s door. 

Ok. Now I have a fucking plan. 

The truck is a lot better cover than a bush, unless someone happens to look under it and see my feet. My shoes are pretty much shot by this point, wet and mud seeping in through the seams. Funny, how something as mundane as wet socks can distract a guy, even in a situation like this. The truck bed is still covered with the black tarp, and its original tail gate is gone, replaced by a steel grill. This one is rusty, and I don't dare open it, but peek through the holes, fishing Mac's keys from my pocket and flashing the LED key chain light inside, which makes me feel like an intruder at the zoo. "Guys? It's Matt. Are you in there?" 

The light shines into a wide pair of dark eyes, Paulo's, and he nods, squirming a bit, but not too much. Romantic and flamboyant as he is, Paulo's the practical type. I can see even in the dim blue light from the key chain, he's trussed up like a pig set for slaughter, duct tape at wrists and ankles and over his mouth. He knows he's not going anywhere. He's just letting me know he can move, I think. The other figure is motionless, lying on its side, and no matter which direction I shine the light, I can't see much more than the top of his head, and his knees, which are drawn up to his chest in the fetal position. "Shit." The usually perfect auburn coif is messy and frizzed, and that, more than anything, is what sets off the panic. I struggle to put it in check, deep breath. Panic never helps in any situation. "McGee?" No motion. "Shit." Paulo is squirming towards him, trying to nudge him, but his jacket is caught up against something in the truck bed and he can't get close enough. "Is he hurt bad? Nod yes or no." Paulo looks at me, making sure he's got my eyes, and shakes his head a slow no. "Shit," I say again, despite this. I take a deep breath. "Ok Paulo, I'm not taking you out of the truck, I'm just taking the whole fucking truck, ok? And I don't think those two goons are going to be ok with that, so it might be a bumpy ride." Paulo nods yes, but his eyes crinkle up at the corners, like he's giving me that stupid vacuous smile of his, like some Latino pool boy who doesn't speak English, just nodding "Si, si," to everything said to him, all the while not comprehending a word. I've learned over the years this is just an affectation, like Paulo's own personal joke. It used to annoy me, but right now it comforts me. I can imagine him saying, "Sure Chico, let's go for a ride!"

The truck door creaks as I climb inside, stick the key in the ignition. I don't shut the door yet, running my eyes over the dash and floor board, making damn sure I've got a solid knowledge of where everything is before I fire up the diseased-sounding engine, because I know the noise will bring Ajax running. Someone's left nearly a full pack of GPCs in the cup holder, and a cellphone. Nothing to drink though. I wish I'd bought a juice or something when I bought the last pack of smokes in that diner. I don't think I've had anything to drink since that Gatorade in the kitchen earlier, and that was hours ago. It feels like days ago. I belt myself in, and light up one of Ajax's cigarettes, mutter that old cliche, "Here goes nothin'" under my breath. 

Jamming down the clutch, I turn the key and slam the door simultaneously, and have to practically wrench the stick into reverse. Ajax's truck is not easy to shift. Hell, if I were Mari, as strong as she is for a girl, I probably wouldn't be able to move the damn thing. It sputters and coughs as I pull a U turn in reverse, and for a cold few seconds I think it's going to cut out on me. I don't have time for that shit. But bucking, it finally rolls back, and as I peel out of the parking lot, onto the rutted road, I can see Ajax and Shay running for it in the rear view. 

Keeping it in only second gear at 20 miles per hour is still faster than I should be going in this heap, with only two wheel drive, and the truck bed weaves and sways behind me in the mud. I hope those two are ok back there. 

I have no delusions of Shay and Ajax being forced to trek through the mud and the rain to the main road to hitch a ride into town. They're not stupid, they're going to know I didn't just stroll in myself. Eventually, they'll find Mac's car, and if they don't wast time trying to break in and hot wire it, they'll also find Mac's hide-a-key stuck to the undercarriage, in its handy little magnetic box. I'm definitely working under a ticking time bomb here, and the clock face is hidden from my view. First stop, some other forest road I can pull off onto and up a few yards to unload and unwrap Paulo and McGee in seclusion. Next stop, the Chevron station in Morton, where I can drop them off and keep moving. Oh, and get something to drink. 

There's something whining in the cab, and for a minute, I'm looking around for a wounded raccoon cub or some other sort of wildlife that might have sneaked into the truck and gotten stuck in here with me, but then I notice the tape deck in the dash is lit up, and when I twist the volume up a bit, crackling speakers emitting a treble-heavy Merle Haggard song. "It's not you I want, I'm looking for my mind." You think?


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter. If anyone out in the world is reading this and has gotten this far...sorry, I'm a terrible person. Really, really sorry.

19? Goddamnit. 

I have a feeling this next bit is going to go fast. I anticipate stealing Ajax's truck has probably set up an unstoppable chain of events: the proverbial domino effect. I'm willing to ride it out. It may even be a little bit sickeningly fun, like a roller coaster. The Dodge coughs and sputters and the truck grinds to a halt at its first destination, and I leave the engine running, afraid I won't get it going again if I turn it off. My loafers squelch in the mud as I hop out of the cab. Shit, provided I can keep it running, I sure as hell hope I can back it out of this muck. 

Somehow, in the space it took to get from there to here, Paulo managed to bring McGee to life, because as soon as I untie and peel back the tarp from the bed, McGee sits straight up squealing, like something out of the Evil Dead. Thank God his mouth is still duct taped together or he'd blow my cover, because they'd probably be able to hear that noise from the road. Paulo scoots to a sitting position, leaning against the wheel well, his eyes wide an anxious. They both look like shit. Normally so sleek and together, clothes impeccably starched and ironed, hair shiny and not a strand out of place, they're corpse pale and dirty and their hair is sticking up everywhere.

"Hey hey hey," I say, scrambling into the bed, cup the back of McGee's head in my hand, like someone would try to soothe a fractious puppy, and he quiets. "Ok, here goes, I'm gonna pull it off fast, ok?" He squeezes his eyes tight and nods, and grasping the tape by the corner, I yank, hard. He leans over gasping, his head resting against my chest for a minute, and I smooth his hair down, working out a couple of the tangles with my fingers. "Ok, John?"

He coughs, then rears back. "Where are you hurt? Get this bloody fucking tape off my hands right now and show me where you're hurt."

I'm confused for a moment, till I realize I'm still covered in Mac's blood. Oh, yeah. I forgot. How? "I'm fine McGee. It's not my blood. I'm not hurt." Although now that he mentions it, now that I've paused a bit, I notice I've got a hell of a headache. Running on adrenaline like I've been doing all night, I didn't notice, but now I'm barely keeping from wincing. I'm probably concussed, damnit. "Hold on a sec, let me get Paulo's off and then I'll get your hands." 

"I'm glad to know it isn't your blood, Matty," Paulo says as soon as I've got his tape off. They both look like kids who've gotten into something they shouldn't have, with gummy lint lines around their mouths from where the tape was, like the aftermath of a band aid. "For a minute there, I was scared. I'm glad it was too dark to see you that way before you stole the truck. I would have been anxious the whole way here. But whose blood is it?"

I pull my leatherman from my pocket ~ in some ways, once a country boy, always a country boy ~ and saw a nick into the wrap of duct tape around McGee's wrists. Once I've notched it, it frays and splits easily. "It's Mac's," I say, no other way around the admission that I can see. They deserve that much from me, some semblance of what's been going on, why they are where they are. There's no way I'm telling everything though. If there's one thing they don't deserve, it's any more parts of the trouble I'm in, and the trouble I know I'm going to be in since I jumped with both feet into this shit. 

"There was a sort of confrontation between Ajax and Shay and ~ you know Shay I guess," it occurs to me then, "she seems tight with George the Waiter." I wonder if George is involved in this. It seems unlikely, at least anymore than McGee, or me for that matter, before all this shit started to climax anyway. Either way, I suppose who was or wasn't involved doesn't matter at this point, because as soon as I've got McGee and Paulo safe, as soon as I've got Shay and Ajax taken care of, I'm done with this shit. 

"Yes, I know Shay, what about her?" McGee says, with an air of impatience and a dash of distaste as he rubs the circulation back into his wrists and ankles. "Oh. She's the other girl, then? I didn't get a good look. I just knew one was that Alex Jackson." He doesn't seem surprised. 

"Yeah. Anyway, she and Ajax, Mari and Mac and I got into this thing...long and the short of it is, Mac got shot, Ajax and Shay got away, obviously, considering you're both here and not back in Seattle, and after I got Mac an ambulance I came back here." I'm unwinding the tape from Paulo's wrists now, and move down to his ankles. His hand, though, rests on top of my head, tilting my face up to his, forcing me to pause. 

"And Mari?" Paulo says. "Why is she not with you?"

I don't want to go into that now. I'm not sure, actually, I want to go into that ever. "I had to leave her behind."

"That bad then," Paulo sighs, and seems content to let that be the end of it. 

I have no idea how much he knows. I'd assumed nothing, and I really don't want to know otherwise, so I just nod and leave it, yanking the last of the tape from around his ankles, wincing in sympathy at the hair left caught on the sticky side. At this point, the least any of us knows, the better. 

McGee, though, is always the one to push the line. "You actually left Mari Macy and Mac...whatever Mac's last name is, bleeding from wounds of some obvious severity, considering the amount of blood on you ~ you're never going to get that out from under your nails by the way ~ to come get Paulo and I?" He's got one eyebrow raised in a 'you expect me to believe that' sort of look. 

I'm very still now, almost biting through my tongue, trying to take a deep breath. It seems to keep getting caught somewhere in the back of my throat though before going all the way down. Why would he say something like that? Why would he say it in that tone of voice? 

Then, "Why would you leave the loves of your life to go after the runners up?" McGee says. Under that facade of facetiousness, there's a genuine hint of bitterness. Ah, McGee, shit. And what do you say to something like that? There's no time to go into all the reasons I'm not sure how I feel about Mari anymore, there's no time to explain to even myself why, even after all I've learned about her this past day, I'm still aching in every bone over the fact I had to leave her. Fact is, sometimes things are beyond saving, at least in the way you or she or he would want them to be saved, and from the minute I left that kitchen last night ~ no, more like from the minute I left my house Wednesday morning before last, having heard that conversation through the ventilation system and done nothing about it ~ there wasn't a damn thing I could've done to save either of them the way I wanted, no way to put my life back to even an approximation of something resembling its former self. And maybe, it was never meant to be that way in the first place. I don't know. I do know McGee's looking for reasons I don't have for him, as to why I probably made my situation worse, and left them, and came running after him. Fact is, sometimes you have to choose to save the things most savable. If the most good I can do is help him and Paulo out of this mess, then it's what I've got to do, but I'm wondering if those fucking Utilitarians ever dreamt it could be this hard. So what do you say to a question like that, 'Why us, not them?' when you know damn well if you could've saved them instead, you would've? You don't lie, because McGee can cut through a lie like a hot knife through butter, and it hurts too much to even think about the truth anymore. You just say, after a long look, "Come on, let's get you two into the truck. We have to keep going or Shay and Ajax are going to catch up to us."

I have to practically lift them down from the truck bed to get them into the cab, because their legs are still mostly numb, but like I said, I don't know how much time I have, and I'd rather not find out chilling on a forest road with no cover and sketchy cell service while McGee and Paulo walk around getting the tingles out. 

"Where are we going Chico?" Paulo says brightly from where he sits riding bitch, once I've got him and McGee safely belted in and the truck back on the highway ~ no easy trick, that, I had to back it all the way back down. 

"Getting you and John someplace safe."

"And what about you Matt?" McGee says, and there's a sort of hardness in his eyes as he looks over Paulo's head at me. I'm wondering what he's thinking, how much he regrets. To stall for time I light a cigarette and open the window. 

Maybe Mari has to plan for every eventuality, but I can't see fifty two different possibilities from the get go. I have to get close to something, touch it, to tell what I can do with it. It's like carving. I can hold a piece of wood in my hands, have a vague idea of what I want it to become, complete with rough sketches of possible outcomes, but in the end, sometimes the wood determines it for you ~ because of the way the grain swirls, or the chips fall away, a figure will have a totally different expression than you planned, a different tilt to the head, completely altering the mood you meant to convey. I've learned to accustom myself to things going their own ways. The cement's not set till it's dry. 

From the moment I saw Ajax's keys dangling from the door lock, I had a vague outline of the way I could end this, and just like that block of wood that determines its own shape under the knife, things are falling into place so that I hardly have to direct the knife at all. 

A phone rings. 

It's not mine, as usual I have no idea where my cell phone is. This one is either Ajax's or Shay's, and after a near comic moment of the three of us searching for the source of the noise, Paulo points to a slim flip deal clipped to the driver's side visor. I take it down, noting the number displayed is Mac's, a number I know far better than my own, because I don't usually call my own phone. There's no confusion though, I know it's not Mac, and in the back of my mind I think I was expecting this, if not quite so soon. The last time I remember seeing Mac's phone, it was in the console of his Hyundai, next to the cigarettes I bought. I nudged it out of the way on the drive out here, remember being annoyed because it was there, when I didn't need it, rather than in Mac's pocket back in the motel room, when I'd needed it badly. Ajax and Shay have apparently found the Hyundai, and found a way into it, already (and my Marlboros, which I'd rather have than Ajax's GPCs). 

I flip it open. "Hello?"

"Matt?" Shay's voice is surprised. "Put Mari on."

"Mari's not here sweetie." There's a moment of silence. I know the 'sweetie' aggravates her. She's that type. I'm not usually so drastically off on first impressions, but I think I've got her pinned now. 

"Honey" (there's stress on the 'honey') "this isn't a game. Put your girlfriend on the phone NOW."

"Cross my heart Shay, she's not with me. I left her back at the motel, which was surrounded by cop cars the last time I saw it." If three cop cars is surrounded, that is, but I suppose it's all relative. 

"You expect me to believe that?"

"Frankly darling, I don't give a damn what you believe, but it's God's honest truth."

There's a long moment full of nothing but the crackle of bad reception, then, "Well what in the hell do you think you're doing?!"

I almost laugh. I mean, I don't even fucking know. 

"Just picking up my friends. Mari was a little reluctant to take the time so I had to come down here myself." 

There's another longish pause, then, "Whatever. We just want what's ours, Matt." 

"I'll call you in a half hour and tell you where you can pick up this junk heap." I intend to have McGee call the cops from the Chevron station at a certain interval and have them dispatched to my moms' house, which is the place I plan to tell Ajax and Shay to meet me to pick up their truck. The cops are going to catch up to me eventually, so I might as well turn myself in and everyone else all at once. The flaws are this: if this were my truck, I sure wouldn't put in that much effort to get it back. True, they need a truck to load the stolen goods into I'm assuming, but they're thieves. This county's rife with trucks. It's a potentially easy fix. On the other hand, they do want to get McGee and Paulo out of the way, and probably me too now they know I'm not with Mari, so that works in my favor. But, full well knowing the laziness of the law around these parts, who knows when a deputy will arrive, or if one'll even bother about an anonymous tip. It could be tomorrow one shows up, it could be never. 

"I don't give a FUCK about the truck!" Apparently Ajax has grabbed the phone away from Shay, because the voice screaming in my ear is not sweet or girly by any means. He also, apparently, shares my sentiments in regards to the Dodge. "I want what was s'posed to be in that fuckin' shed!"

I bite my tongue, barely keeping, "It wasn't there?" from slipping out my mouth, replaced with a sort of weak, "Oh, that too." Not terribly convincing, but I doubt he's paying attention too closely. In any case, this is going to make assuring at least Ajax and Shay's presence a damn sight easier, if he's convinced I have "what's his." 

"Whereisit?!" His teeth are clenched I think, and the demand comes out as a sort of wheezy gasp through them. I imagine that square jaw of his sticking out an extra couple inches, the perfect target. I'm not a violent guy usually, but right now I swear I'd knock him stupid if he were within my line of sight. Instead, I give him my moms' address. If he's a half hour, forty five minutes behind me, I can still probably beat him there, even in this rig, especially since he's got to find it first. The farmhouse is tucked away down a couple little side roads that are easy to miss, even if he's got a good map, which I know Mac does, under the baby wipes in his glove box. 

"It better fuckin' be there man or you and your little fag friends are fucked," I hear as I snap the phone shut. 

As I re-clip the phone to the visor, I nearly miss the turn into Morton. The Chevron ~ actually, most of the town ~ is visible from the highway, and it's the biggest patch of civilization out here, in the east part of the county. 

"Look," I say to Paulo and McGee as I pull behind the station, eying the gas gauge. Looks like the only thing I'm thanking Ajax for in the entirety of both our lives will probably be that he filled up the gas tank at some point in the recent past. I won't have to leave the cab. I haven't been gone for so long someone wouldn't recognize me. "This is going to seem like an asshole move, but I'm leaving you two here. Shay and Ajax are going to follow me because they're thinking about all the stolen goods they think I've got first, and you two second. Hopefully, by the time they realize you're not with me anymore, it'll be too late." Half way through this speech I'm directing it pretty much to just Paulo though, because McGee is starting to get a little crazy-eyed. 

He opens his mouth, finally, to cut me off, but I keep going. "You can get home from here, it's the back end of nowhere but it's not completely cut off from civilization, and ~ shit, did he leave you your wallets?"

Paulo nods, almost eagerly. "Yes Matt, we have our wallets still. At least, I do. All they took was our cell phones so we couldn't call for help. There was something you needed us to do?"

I always thought I was fairly good at reading people, but Paulo takes the cake. "Yeah. Yes. Please." I look at my wrist, but I'm not wearing a watch, so I check the cell phone on the visor. "Ok, in exactly forty five minutes, will you please call 911, and tell them there's a burglary happening at..." I'm looking for something to write with and striking out. Paulo reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a mini tablet and pen in a silver-plated holder. 

"Matt ~" McGee breaks in.

Paulo looks back over his shoulder, gently says, "Hush John," and miraculously, McGee hushes. 

"Thanks," I say, which is both for the silence and the notepad, though I have to flip past several pages of phone numbers before I find a blank one, and jot down my moms' address. "Ok, in forty five minutes, tell them to go here. I don't know if they'll be able to tell you're calling from a payphone in Morton for an Ony address, but say whatever you have to say to get them to go ~ as long as nothing you say implicates yourselves."

Paulo nods solemnly, tearing the page out when I hand the notebook back and sticking it in an outer pocket, replacing the rest in his breast pocket. "Of course Matt. It is a small thing. Is there anything else we can do?"

"No man, I'll be good to go from there."

I know it's not fair, to expect them to stick around for so long, to help me out when they're out here because of me, but I need this to happen, and I can't count on the shoddy cell reception where I'll be when I need to call, or that by then I'll even be in a position to call, and I'm pretty sure Celeste had the phones at the farmhouse disconnected. 

"What the fuck is going on Matt?" McGee finally breaks in. "No one's calling anyone until you tell us why." There's a belligerent set to his chin, a dangerous glint in his eye that lets me know I've finally, for the first time, pushed John McGee to his limits, at least as far as I'm concerned. 

I sigh. "Because in forty five minutes, Shay and Ajax are going to be at that address with, I hope, a bunch of the stuff they stole. And hopefully, someone will catch them in the act."

"And for some reason, you're going to be there too," McGee says. 

Well, it's not like he's deaf, he did overhear the entirety of my cell phone conversation with Shay and Ajax. 

"If I'm not there they'll probably just take off. I need the police to arrest them John. I cannot ~ I just can't ~" my voice is starting to break up and I have to swallow hard a couple times before I can pull it together. "They're the reason Mac could be dying right now McGee. I can't let them just walk, you know?"

McGee just lowers his brows. They're a flat, auburn line over sparking brown eyes. His voice is steady though when he speaks, he's practicing his lawyer on me. "Goddamnit Matt, I overheard some of what happened ~ do you know how many years they're going to get for this? Of course you don't, but I know what you're probably hoping and it's fairly close I bet. But more importantly, do you know how many years YOU'LL be put away for, for just having been there, if you can't prove you didn't help them? You can't sacrifice yourself for this Matt. I know damn well you did nothing wrong, and it's not worth it, it's not." Even though he's sitting still in the passenger seat of the truck, he gives the impression of pacing. And when he stops, finally, I'm not quite sure what to say. At the beginning, I wanted to yell back, but I feel strangely subdued. 

"No, I don't know McGee," I say, keeping my voice as low and even as possible. "And I'd rather you didn't tell me."

"Goddamnit Matt!" There's the volume. 

"McGee, you're repeating yourself."

"FUCK! Do NOT leave us here. Do NOT follow them. Stay here. We'll get you out of this. We'll make sure Ajax and Shay get what's coming to them, later, when we're better set, better defended, better prepared ~"

I've closed my eyes, am resting my poor concussed head in my hands. I can't do this anymore. Luckily, Paulo seems to have had enough too. He's scrambling over McGee's lap and out the door, then tugging on his jacket sleeve from the ground. 

"Just go," I say. "Thanks, Paulo."

"You're welcome Matt. Be well. Come ON John, let's go." Whether Paulo trusts me, or just has a stronger sense of self preservation than McGee, I don't know, but whatever it is, I'm grateful. 

"Goddamn it Matt," McGee says again, as Paulo finally manages to wrangle him out of the truck. 

"Bye McGee," I hear myself saying, as I put the truck into gear. "I love you too you know." 

He stops then, and Paulo takes advantage of the moment to shut the truck door. "Let him go John," I hear as I reach over to open it again and re-slam it ~ he didn't get it shut all the way. "Some things," Paulo says, "even friends can't help with."

It's not a bad thing though, I'm thinking, the way my mind works. Yeah, it may be running like a hamster on a wheel, but my hands are steady, maybe because of it. Everything is sharp and clear in my vision: the evergreens lining the highway jump at me 3-D through the mist, the lines on the road, in sharp relief. I'm wondering how I'll look back on this, if I'll be able to look back on this. You ever stand there, still in a moment of time, taking in every little detail, knowing it's a moment you'll look back on, and wonder how it will look from a different angle? What will you want to have done differently? But when it comes down to it, that future angle won't matter till it comes, and even then it won't matter except in regards to future decisions, like a legal precedent, because right now, in this second, this minute, this present slice of time, you can only do what you're doing, can only take the paths you see immediately before you, can only do what it looks like you've got to do from the place you're standing right now. But God, I wish I was omnipresent ~ omnificent? 'Cause I sure can't imagine living with myself if I fuck this up. 

The garage door, I see, is open as I pull up the driveway, with the Hyundai pulled up right next to it. Pretty much the only thing this can mean is that they beat me here, which means they probably knew the way here in the first place. And if they knew the way here in the first place, it's entirely likely when Ajax said "Onalaska" to Mari in the motel room earlier, he really did mean here, not the shooting range in Randle like Mac thought. Most likely, for whatever reason, they divided the stuff up between locations. I guess it's smart not to put all your eggs in one basket but man, has it thrown a stick in the spokes of my plans. I was sort of hoping to be here waiting for them when they got here. Instead, they're peeking out the edge of my moms' garage door, Shay with a crowbar in hand, Ajax with a slat of wood. One is most likely to open packing crates, the other is most likely from a packing crate, but they still look like a strange breed of thug, standing there glaring at me. 

"Where is it?" Shay says as I hop out of the truck. I've left the keys in the ignition, but I stuck Ajax's cigarettes in my shirt pocket. Who knows what the rest of the morning will call for? It feels strange, coming home not to my mothers, not even to perform some sort of maintenance on the empty house or its yard as I've been known to do, but coming home to a couple of strangers, who from the looks of it think they're going to take off in Celeste's SUV. She left it here, because she rides the bus or her bike in the city, and as I get closer to the garage door, I can see they've popped the back hatch and loaded it with a couple paintings already. 

"Where's what?" I ask, when I'm close enough to them to speak without shouting. I stick my hands in my pockets, surreptitiously trying to adjust my shirt so it fully conceals the browning, stuck back in the back of my waistband since I first climbed into Ajax's truck. 

"Where's the rest of it? What's here is only the half we put here ourselves. Where's the stuff that was supposed to be up on that mountain in that shed?"

Shit. I don't know. Mari must have either moved it or sold it. I didn't even know there were two...batches, until just now. Girl was playing a deeper game than any of us, Shay and Ajax, Mac, certainly me ever knew. 

The wind moves trough the poplars by the river, and I glance over that way, feeling the cool breeze on my face, imagining laying down out there in the field with Mari and Mac, just screwing around after setting up targets, while the wind flips the poplar leaves to their silver sides, and the still-green hay waves back and forth over our heads. Never again, I guess. 

I've got to stall for time somehow. 

"It's inside, in the attic," I decide, and head towards the house with a 'come on' gesture, trudge up the steps, Shay and Ajax trailing just far enough behind and to the right of me to make me nervous. 

The fourth step squeaks bad, like a dying kitten, it always has, so I don't even notice it, but the both of them jump some, and Ajax says, "What was that?"

"The steps man, just a little creak." I'm successfully keeping the creak out of my own voice, trying to play big dumb jock like with the cops earlier, or, what was it Shay said? big innocent baby? and I congratulate myself, 'cause I'm nervous as all hell. I sure hope to God the browning isn't showing. 

"Watch it!" Shay demands as I reach into my pocket, and I can hear the click of a gun’s safety so I raise my hands slowly, still staring straight ahead. My, but they're jumpy. 

"Just gettin' my house key sweetie. Can I do that little thing?" They must know this is my house, I can't imagine Mari wouldn't have said at least that much. 

"Slowly," she says finally. "No sudden moves."

Seriously? Did she just say that?

The key sticks in the lock some because my hands are trembling, just slightly, but hopefully only I can see that. "Mat's just inside the door. Wipe your feet please." Ajax actually does. Shay just keeps her gun on me. According to the hall clock, I've got at least fifteen minutes to burn before police assistance arrives. Fuck. 

"Kay, where's the attic?" Ajax says. he at least seems to be relaxing a little, perhaps drawn in by my down home boy act. Or maybe he just thinks they've got this in the bag already. 

"Just off the kitchen," I say, leading the way. My mind is running over a dozen possible schemes: could I disarm her with the old lamp I know is just inside the attic door? Maybe turn around fast and shove them down the stairs? Insist they go first and barricade the door behind them? 

"Stop right fucking there," Shay practically screeches as we're just inside the kitchen doorway. She's got her little handgun aimed at me, and her eyes are darting about wildly. 

"Yes ma'aam." I obey, wondering what the hell now. 

"It's one of those doors?" She jerks her head to the two doors set side by side into the kitchen wall, her ponytail bobbing absurdly. 

"Yes ma'am."

"You fucking liar," she spits, reminding me of a pissed off kitten. The gun less than two feet from my face says otherwise though, and I take a tentative step back.

"S'cuse me?" 

"Both the doorknobs are dusty. No one's opened either of those doors in months." There's a sneer in her voice like she's insulted I didn't think she'd notice. Fuck, why would I? Why would I even notice? What is she, Sherlock Fucking Holmes?

"Huh?" Ajax echoes my sentiments exactly, running a hand over his forehead, like there's usually a hat there he's used to pushing back. "What the hell Shay? Just go up there and look already."

"No point. He's been stringing us along from the start. Weren't you Matt? I don't know how you got your psycho girlfriend out of the way, but it was just too tempting, wasn't it? All that lovely money, all to yourself." I don't know where she got all this, or where she gets off calling Mari psycho. I mean, talk about the pot and the kettle. There's this mad gleam in her eyes and an ugly grimace twisting her face, and over her shoulder I see even Ajax looks pretty freaked out, to the point it seems like he's about to put his hands up too. 

It's not the last thing I ever expected to be doing, not most or least, because it's nothing I ever expected. Well, at least not until today, that is. I'm being backed against a wall slowly with my hands raised and a baretta pointed at my face. I see that's what it is now, this close up, a nice little piece, not new but perfectly well kept. If it were Mari's, I'd say well loved, but as it's Shay's, I don't know that that's the case. I expect not.

"C'mon Shay." Ajax is practically pleading with her now. "Be reasonable girl. This boy ain't done nothin' to us, he was just tryin' to help out his friends."

"Oh just shut it Alex." Shay whips her head around in his direction, the gun trembling with the tension in her outstretched arms, its barrel only inches from my nose. "You're the one who decided to bring strangers in on this without asking me first, this fucking mess is all on you." I'm tempted to reach up and push the gun to the side with my index finger, it's that unsteady in her grip, and if I wasn't scared before, now I'm terrified. 

Having never been in a situation like this, having never really imagined being in a situation like this, I've therefore never contemplated what I would do in a situation like this. And I'm discovering, for the second...or third? time tonight, it's kind of hard to think with a loaded gun in the vicinity of my face. I'm discovering, as I pull the browning from the waistband of my slacks, in such a situation, one doesn't have time to really reason it out: to fire, or not to fire? Your instincts decide for you. But I'm not waiting another half a second for Shay to finally lose it, and I side step fast away while her attention's still on Ajax, and the report of the browning is louder than I expect in the relative smallness of my moms' kitchen. Shay stumbles back, her slight body falling against the kitchen chairs and table, then slumps to the floor, a thin pool of dark blood oozing over white linoleum. Ajax looks from her still body to me, back again to her. Now the decision's been made, time's gone back to normal again, or less than. My brain's just now working all this out, you see, like a rubber band snap, like stretching it out between your fingers, the way you feel it sting against your skin at the recoil, almost as you're still watching it recoil. I can hear my heart beating, but logically I know, from where he's standing at least 20 feet away, Ajax can't hear a thing except maybe the gasping of my breath, and I'm fairly certain my hand are steady, my stance is firm and professional, as I point the gun at him. He holds his hands up, backing slowly away. 

"I don't want no trouble man. No more. I ain't got nothin' against you, she shouldn'ta cornered you like that, right? You and me, we're cool. We got nothin'."

He has a point. From the time I became involved till now, the only move he's made against me was to kidnap McGee and Paulo, and that was never an intentional affront to me. And while he would've kidnapped me, that was nothing personal either. It was Mari he and Shay were trying to hurt, and not even so much to hurt as to control, as she was likely already showing signs of backing out of the deal. In fact, any and all fractures in the partnership between Ajax and Shay, Mac and Mari, can be entirely laid at the feet of Mari, and in lesser part, Shay. He's right, I got nothin'. But I don't intend to shoot anyone tonight anyway. I nod, not letting his gaze escape mine, charmer as to snake. "Just go." My voice is deeper than usual, a gruff rumble in my chest, caught up in my heaving lungs and thundering heart. "We're done. You go, now. The sheriff's on his way."

The man's eyes widen, but he doesn't question this statement, just backs out of the room, slow and steady, hands still up, and I can see his adams apple bobs up and down as he swallows hard. I follow him with the gun, keeping an even distance between us till he gets to the door, where he pauses, uncertain. 

"Turn around, open the door, and walk to your truck, keep your hands up a bit. The keys are in the ignition. I swear I won't shoot so long as you just drive away." 

I keep my voice steady so he'll believe me. No one trusts a nervous guy with a gun. I have no doubt about his willingness to leave Shay though, and no compunction about coercing him to do so. It seems the best way to diffuse the remainder of this situation, and I never sensed anything between them but a common mercenary interest anyway, and a struggle over who the boss really was. 

"Those fag friends of yours aren't still in the truck?" 

I guess I wouldn't want to drive away with hostages and nothing to hold them hostage for either. "Nah, dropped 'em off a while back. You're good to go."

He nods one more time, paused as if gathering courage to turn his back to a loaded gun, and does as I asked, the back end of the pickup fishtailing, tires spraying gravel as it struggles down the driveway. As soon as the orange hulk hits the highway I shut the door and turn the deadbolt. Don't ask me why I locked the damn thing, habit probably. 

The gun's still ready in my hand as I make my way back to Shay. Thankfully she's still out cold. It worked out better than I could've hoped, if I'd had time to hope for something, let alone plan. I'd been aiming, I think, for her gun arm, but when I squat down to examine it, I see I only just grazed her. It was either shock or surprise then, that made her stumble back, trip on the chair, and knock herself out on the edge of the kitchen table. What a fucking joke ~ all the guns about tonight, and aside from Mac, most of the casualties are impact wounds to the head. Then again, I'm forgetting about whoever died at the facility where Mari's mom was kept. That part doesn't really seem real though, as much as I know it probably happened, but with all the intense shit I've actually experienced in the past morning and night, I can't really blame myself for not feeling bad about something I wasn't even a part of, only experienced through hearsay. 

 

I check Shay's pulse, which is steady, like her breathing, and gently lift her head to run my hand lightly over the back of it. It's just a cut, and likely a bruise. I can't feel any mushy spots, gaps or indents.

I sit back on my haunches, pull a cigarette from the pack in the front pocket of my shirt, light it, trying to decide what the fuck in the world to do next. My mom would kill me for smoking in the house, but then again, she'd do the same for the blood on the floor and the bullet lodged in the wainscoting by the door. 

If I timed it right, in about 10 minutes the sheriff will pull into that driveway. I zone out for about the space of half a cigarette, only vaguely considering my options, dabbling in them really. I'm already pretty sure I know what I'm about to do next, and I'm only half-heartedly trying to convince myself it's a stupid idea. 

I can only compare this feeling to one other instance: Fall of '98, AP Physics ~ the one and only class I ever got less than a perfect grade in, at least in high school. I failed it. Physics and I don't get along, and no that ~ the fact that I don't get physics ~ doesn't make any sense to me either. Obviously, neither do physics. I remember it, last day of the quarter, getting ready for the final exam after lunch. We were allowed a pencil and a 3x5 note card, all other materials would be provided. I'd just finished English and Civics, and my brain was burnt. Not that those were hard, but completing a few dozen essay questions about various constitutional amendments and a J.D. Salinger story that never made any sense to anyone all in the space of one morning will take it out of you, especially if in the back of your mind the whole time you're nervous as hell about a test you're not prepared for, a test you know you have to ace to break a 70% for the class for the whole semester. I remember going to my locker for something ~ hell, who knows, probably for my mostly blank 3x5 note card ~ and the feeling I experienced then I can only describe as something like breaking. No, scratch that, it was more like there was a rope inside me pulled taught as in a game of tug of war, and it suddenly frayed and snapped in half. And at that, there was a great release of pressure, all at once, and instead of reaching for that goddamn note card, I grabbed my book bag, sans books, containing only dirty gym clothes and the odds and ends of a boy's life, slung it over my shoulders and exited the building. The backpack felt incredibly light on my shoulders, just like my head, as I made my way to the back of the parking lot and my truck, newly painted cherry red and shining like a homing beacon. It was the last class of the day, the last class of the semester, and I never did go back till after the first of the year. Fact was, I knew I was fucked either way. So what was the point of putting myself through the agony of taking a test I knew I wasn't going to pass? Ok, so I might've squeaked by with a D, but it didn't seem worth it to me, in that snap of a moment, to stick around to find out.

Now, in this moment, this current slice of time, sitting around waiting for the cops feels the exact same way. Yeah, I can plead ignorance, self defense, but I know I'm gonna get some sort of hell for leaving that hotel room and haring after Ajax and Shay with absolutely shit all to show for it, no excuse for it now but a garage ~ MY garage ~ full of stolen shit. And how do you explain something like that? I know Mac's not going to talk, no matter what kind of deal they try to cut him, no matter what sort of bad shape he's in ~ that's just a gut feeling I have but it's all because I'm involved now damnit ~ but I have no idea what state of mind Mari's in, or will end up in, and can't even begin to guess now what she'll say about me as far as this shit's concerned, or any of it.

As far as the original goal, which was to turn myself in because it would allow me to, at the same time, turn Shay and Ajax in, well I just let Ajax go, and Shay's going to be caught regardless. She's not going anywhere for the time being. 

And I can walk ~ at least for a little while, a little ways. There's a backpack full of cash, some clean clothes, and an ID with not my name on it in the trunk of the Hyundai. There's a well-kept, innocuous Nissan SUV in the garage Celeste won't be missing any time soon. And if I leave, right now, I'll miss the Sheriff by a good ten minutes. 

Best case scenario, I'll be chilling in Argentina waiting for Mac and Mari to be released from prison sometime this century. Worst, I'll spend a few years behind bars myself ~ more than I would've after this jackass move, but it feels worth it. 

Yeah, just like that fucking physics test, there'll probably be hell to pay later. And this time there'll be more hell than making up for a lost quarter by finishing two quarters of AP chemistry in the space of one (physics and I were fucking done). But the bags I pull from Mac's trunk, despite being damn well more substantial than that long ago backpack, fell light on my shoulders as I carry them to the garage and toss them into Celeste's old rig. 

It starts right up. I've always been good at keeping it up for her, for when she comes down here to do her photography thing. I adjust the picture on the seat ~ the one taken just a few yeards away in that field over there, as much as it seems like miles away and decades ago just now, the one of me, Mac and Mari that I swiped from over the kitchen table on my way out the back door, the one with Mac partially blurry, Mari aiming her gun at the lens, and me looking not at the camera, but at them ~ turn it so I can see it easily at a quick glance down. 

This is the part where the picture ends, the credits roll, and it sure isn't happily ever after. It's after sunrise, and it's a long ways from sunset, and there are no hearts and flowers about it. But I don't know what's next. Sure, there'll be some shit. Maybe I'll make it to somewhere else, across the border, maybe they'll catch me along the way. But I guess I'm not ready for the real end yet, and as much as I hate false climaxes, I'm going to drag this shit out as long as possible. If the only real end comes when we die, well, none of us are dead yet.


End file.
